New factions?

[Strategos Alexandros]

The first occultus sigs were before the release of 0.7, so it couldn't have been Saba or Saka.

[Ludens]

I think Epeiros, Arverni, Saba or Saka or Yuezhi,

I can't remember how the first occultus signs looked, but they referred to the secret factions of the open beta (EB 0.7). These were Epeiros, Averni and the Yuezhi. The team had kept quiet on the fact that they had unlocked the Roman faction slots (apart from the senate one, which could only be used after EB ported to R:TW 1.5), so nobody expected that there were three factions in addition to the ones already previewed. The Saba were not added until EB 0.8, and the Yuezhi were replaced by the Saka at that time. IIRC they didn't get occultus signatures: instead the team released their faction symbols while leaving us to guess which faction they might belong to.

[Hax]

Ah, so it is!

Thanks, Ludens

[Moros]

I can't remember how the first occultus signs looked, but they referred to the secret factions of the open beta (EB 0.7). These were Epeiros, Averni and the Yuezhi. The team had kept quiet on the fact that they had unlocked the Roman faction slots (apart from the senate one, which could only be used after EB ported to R:TW 1.5), so nobody expected that there were three factions in addition to the ones already previewed. The Saba were not added until EB 0.8, and the Yuezhi were replaced by the Saka at that time. IIRC they didn't get occultus signatures: instead the team released their faction symbols while leaving us to guess which faction they might belong to.

That's quite correct. One of the banners is still used by Khelvan btw. So if you want to see one, check out his profile. I don't remember Saka or Sab'yn occultus sig's myself either. And as huge occultus fan I'm sure I'd have had one of them as my sig.

[eddy_purpus]

you have had ?
or...
YOU HAVE ONE RIGHT NOW ?
LOL
Oh ...
and why was Yuezhi removed from the mod :???

[Moros]

you have had ?
or...
YOU HAVE ONE RIGHT NOW ?
LOL
Oh ...
and why was Yuezhi removed from the mod :???

I've had one before 0.7 and I have a new one now.

Yuezhi: furhter investigation showed that they weren't yet west enough at our timeframe to be on our map which didn't go as far east as we previously tought.

[Sir Edward]

As interesting as this discussion is I'm not sure this is the right thread for it.

I'll contribute by trying to get the thread back on topic.

1. Pergamon -- preview already available.
2. Bosphorean Kingdom-- a hellenic faction with a nice variety of native scythians & thracians
3. Belgae-- already has a small entry in the EB website, where they state starting territories, would be in a position to disrupt gaul and sweboz expansions, along with through rebellions giving the casse someone to fight in britain.
4. Boii-- an eastern europe celt faction, in my opinion at this time was better organized politically then the alternative illyrians tribe, keeps rome from heading north east to quickly and Epirus focus on the Balkans. EB addded a unit or 2 specific for the Boii in the last update.
5. Arevaci-- celtiberians, highlights the diversity of peoples in the iberian peninsula, metal working, coin minting, urbanized into oppida, subjugated their neighbors, make & broke alliances, a diversity of weapons and fighting styles, led the resistance along with the Belli against the Romans.
6. Atropatene-- an ancient diadochi kingdom in Azerbaijan, I can't find to many records about them but they were independent of the Seleucids. I admit I don't know much about their fighting style but imagine it to be simiar to the Hai and the Seleucids. Would give armenia someone to compete against for control of Caucasus and another thorn in the side of the gray death or an ally/bufferstate against parthian western expansion.
7. Gandhara--Something needs to be done about India, the current system of reelling to parthian control gives disruptive results, akin to what happen with Arabian Peninsula in pre-Saba EB. To represent the Mauryan empire would be out of the question but it would be nice to have a Mauryan northwestern satrap faction in game, taxilla from what i've read was a provincial capital.
8. Massyli-- Numidians faction, guarantees Carthage will have to fight for dominance in North Africa.
9. Nabataea-- Northern Arabian kingdom, access to red sea and arab trade routes, ramained independent until conquest by Traijan, expanded territory north into jordan at cost of weaken Seleucids.
10. Empty-- this faction slot should remain open for scripting purposes.

REally excited about the news Boii preview this week. Also looking back through old thread I found this. So far I'm hitting 3 for 3 in confirmed predictions (Boii, Bosphorean Kingdom, & Massyli). Cmon EB team lets continue this clairvoyance streak. Keep up the great work EB.

[Zarax]

Somebody said something about clairvoyance long ago...

Tell to the king that the carven hall is fallen in decay;
Apollo has no chapel left, no prophesying bay,
No talking spring. The stream is dry that had so much to say.

[Mulceber]

REally excited about the news Boii preview this week. Also looking back through old thread I found this. So far I'm hitting 3 for 3 in confirmed predictions (Boii, Bosphorean Kingdom, & Massyli). Cmon EB team lets continue this clairvoyance streak. Keep up the great work EB.

Nice, but I don't think we're gonna get the Ghandahara kingdom - the EB team has already stated that they don't want to put any factions in India because they wouldn't have access to the whole of India. We'll see how you do for the rest. -M

[Ludens]

Nice, but I don't think we're gonna get the Ghandahara kingdom - the EB team has already stated that they don't want to put any factions in India because they wouldn't have access to the whole of India. We'll see how you do for the rest. -M

Back in the first stele the team wrote there would be no Maurean Empire, but left open the possibility of a Maurean satrapy as faction. I doubt this will happen, though.

[olly]

There is a dire need to have a faction in Iberia so that is a must and I really hope that they split up KH a bit so I can just take control of one of the leagues or Sparta. Does anyone think KH will be split up.

[Mulceber]

I doubt it - if they were to split up the KH, the only logical way to do it would be to make each city state its own faction, and there just aren't enough slots for that. To my mind, there aren't any problems with the Koinon Hellenon that don't come down to the limitations of the RTW engine. -M

[anubis88]

There is a dire need to have a faction in Iberia so that is a must and I really hope that they split up KH a bit so I can just take control of one of the leagues or Sparta. Does anyone think KH will be split up.

The team has stated that the KH wont be split up. All the factions from EB I will remain unchanged (perhaps the Casse might get some alterations imho)

[caradepato]

I for one would like to see the suiones, but i can understand that maybe there are not sufficiant sources in order to make an accurate faction.

[B-Wing]

I really can't imagine why anyone would want to see the KH divided into separate factions. I must admit that I haven't played them yet, but from what I've read around here, they have an extremely difficult campaign start. Based on that impression, seems like splitting them up would make it impossible for each individual city-state.

[Mulceber]

The reason is that they're not historical: the Koinon Hellenon is supposed to represent the alliance between Athenai, Sparte and Rhodos that happened during the Chremonidean War of 267-261. That's all well and good, but if they had won the war (they didn't), they would have then split up and likely resumed the internecine civil wars which had characterized Greece from the Archaic period all the way down to the conquest of Greece by Philip II. Thus, the idea of the KH driving out Makedonia and then going on to unite a whole bunch of Greek colonies throughout the Mediterranean into one Greek Empire is ridiculous. The ideal would be if we could have Athenai, Sparte and Rhodos as separate factions and have them just be firm allies, but anyone who's played EB knows that 1. The AI is too stupid for a Greek Alliance to be effective if 2/3 of its members are controlled by the AI and 2. the AI would likely betray the player in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, the Koinon Hellenon faction is the best the EB team can do with the limitations of the RTW engine. -M

[Phalanx300]

Best way to do it would probably be spawning a lot of rebellions after you "liberated" Greece. But yeah having independant factions would be better but not possible within the faction limits.

[Hotseat_User]

and there are forced by game alliances in MED II Kingd. as I remember the tripple beast of Russia/Kiev/Byzanz in "Schwert und Speer 4.0" they couldn't cease the alliance - only a player who played one of them.

[Mulceber]

That is true - and there was the whole Iulii/Bruti/Scipiones (I refuse to say the names Creative Assembly ACTUALLY gave them) alliance in Vanilla RTW which couldn't be ended except by the end of the Republic. So I suppose it would be possible to make a KH that would stick together (at least long enough to get rid of Makedonia), but then you have the issue of the AI being too stupid. Vanilla dealt with that by nerfing everyone but Rome, but I don't see the EB team wanting to do that (for the KH or for anyone else).

I suppose if they had the available faction slots, they could make either the Athenaioi, the Spartiatai or the Rhodioi playable (apologies if that was the incorrect plural for someone from Rhodes - my Greek isn't as good as my Latin), and make a fixed alliance between the three. Then, they could trigger the alliance to end right after the death of the Makedonian Faction and maybe the Epeirote Faction and give the player the task of conquering the other two members of the alliance before going on to conquer the Mediterranean. That would be pretty darn cool, if they had the faction slots, although they'd have to list the difficulty for each member as "nigh impossible," since they'd be having to conquer Makedonia with little help from their AI allies and then defeat said AI allies.

Either that or, instead of making it a "fixed" alliance," they could just use the jihad function from Medieval II so that the Greek factions would work in concert to destroy the Makedonioi, and could theoretically do the same for the Epeirotes or the Romani, or whoever represented a danger to Greek independence. The problem you run into there though is the risk of one member just declaring a jihad on whoever they were at war with, but I suppose you MIGHT be able to find some coding ways around that; for example, you could make jihad only available if certain regions (such as any of the following: Attica, Aitolia, Thessaly, the Peloponnese, and Rhodos) are under siege or held by a non-Greek-or-Eleutheroi faction. But this is all hypothetical, since the EB team has said they are not splitting up the KH. -M

[Foot]

We have plans for the KH, and you shouldn't expect to play them in the same way as you would play another faction. You will need to balance internal politics between the three major city states in the alliance, and the more territory you gain, the more unstable the alliance becomes. But you will be able to solidify the alliance into something for stable through careful diplomacy between the different cities.

Foot

[Horatius Flaccus]

Does that mean that you can 'transform' into an empire?

[artaxerxes]

We have plans for the KH, and you shouldn't expect to play them in the same way as you would play another faction. You will need to balance internal politics between the three major city states in the alliance, and the more territory you gain, the more unstable the alliance becomes. But you will be able to solidify the alliance into something for stable through careful diplomacy between the different cities.

Foot

uh that sounds good, that sounds very good

[Mulceber]

We have plans for the KH, and you shouldn't expect to play them in the same way as you would play another faction. You will need to balance internal politics between the three major city states in the alliance, and the more territory you gain, the more unstable the alliance becomes. But you will be able to solidify the alliance into something for stable through careful diplomacy between the different cities.

Foot

Thanks for the info - I have no doubt that the EBII team will turn out something great for the KH. -M

[Cute Wolf]

Thanks for the info - I have no doubt that the EBII team will turn out something great for the KH. -M

Maybe Sparta, Athenai and Rhodos are separate factions....

Or did the team decide to create a "Pope" factions for KH scripting purpose?

[WinsingtonIII]

Maybe Sparta, Athenai and Rhodos are separate factions....

Or did the team decide to create a "Pope" factions for KH scripting purpose?

They're not going to split them. The team has said already that all EB1 factions will remain in, which means the KH will remain as one entity. Plus, three faction slots is a bit much to use for three city-states whose importance was historically in decline in this period.

I'm also fairly sure that the team has previously said that they will not use a faction slot for a "Pope" faction, although I might be wrong. I do remember that they ruled out the use of "crusades" as a feature (to represent migrations I believe) because they require a separate "Pope" faction, which makes it seem unlikely to me that they will include one. But, who knows?

[Mulceber]

I don't think you'd actually need the "pope" faction slot - Jihad in M2 doesn't make use of it, even though it functions in a similar manner to crusades. -M

[Cute Wolf]

Yeah, depending what they decide to use these labels... Catholic, Orthodox, Islam, Pagan, and Heretic.....

[bobbin]

I don't think you'd actually need the "pope" faction slot - Jihad in M2 doesn't make use of it, even though it functions in a similar manner to crusades. -M

Crusades need a papal faction as you need to ask somone to call one, jihads are done through agents and so don't need to do this.

[WinsingtonIII]

I don't think you'd actually need the "pope" faction slot - Jihad in M2 doesn't make use of it, even though it functions in a similar manner to crusades. -M

I know, that's why I said they only specifically ruled out crusades as a feature. They have left open the possibility of using jihads.

[Mulceber]

Oh ok, my bad - I saw that you said that they ruled out crusades, but didn't realize that you were intentionally leaving open jihads. -M