Announcement/Discussion: Faction List

[Bercor]

Really? I always thought you could spawn an army through script and then tell it where to attack in that turn, but you couldn't move an army through various turns and not attack.

[The Sloth]

We could always give the 'Macedonians' to the Independent Peoples as well.

The Independent Peoples are another thing I've been thinking about.

Every province needs a "creator", a faction to whose culture it belongs at the start of the game and that it will often join when revolting. This leads to some strange stuff in the current beta, and you'll see India revolting to Parthia.
We already have one barbarian "free" faction, and two Greek ones. It would make sense to have the Independent Peoples as an eastern one. That way, they can be the "creators" of provinces that don't fit anyone else, like Arabia or India (which they're supposed to represent anyway). If we do that, there'll be no giving them settlements in Greece or anything like that.

Now here's what's been bothering me. I was thinking that it might make more sense to have the Ptolemies shadowed by a non-Greek faction, since they had a lot of native Egyptian revolts. But I don't know what faction that could be. If we take the Independent people, we'll end up with an "eastern" presence in a very western location. Another idea would be to change the "Carthaginian" culture into "African", and have the Ptolemies shadowed by Numidia, but that would turn one of our factions into a fourth "free" faction.

[ahowl11]

We will test out this version first. If it ends up being to strange then I have the idea of making Numidia an eastern kingdoms superfaction and the independent peoples would represent only barbarians that were not celtic. However, I'd like to keep Numidia as a faction

[b257]

Are swap factions still Planned? If so maybe we could include massylia as one so the numidia issue could be solved. By the way we should probably list the swap factions as well, otherwise when the mod goes public people are gonna ask why a certain faction isn't in and said faction is probably one of the swap factions.

[Mausolos of Caria]

Yes swap factions are still planned for later.


As for the Greek states and cities, I think this would be the best distribution:

Greek cities faction: Sparta, Athens, Syracuse, Massalia, Boiotian League, Byzantion

Greek states faction: Achaian League, Aitolian League, Bosporan Empire, Cretan League, (Thessalian League)

This has the advantage of most ''cities'' actually being cities and ''states'' being the Leagues. Furthermore, it's based on political alliances and oppositions:

Athens was allied with Sparta during the Cleomenean War, the Achaian League fought against Sparta, the Aitolian League fought against the Boiotian League, Syracuse was always quite close to Sparta, Sparta had a campaign on Crete, the Aitolian League made war on Sparta once etc.

Later with our new map we'll have to see if and where other Greek towns that are still rebel territory right now (Apollonia, Sinope etc.) fit in.

[Bercor]

I agree with Mausolos.

[ahowl11]

Hmmm I was thinking in terms of gameplay with these factions.. You cannot have two sub factions too close together or they will become too strong. Here is what I was thinking:

Greek Cities - Athens, Achaean League, Rhodes, Massilia
Greek States - Sparta, Aetolian League, Bosporan Kingdom
Hellenic Kingdoms - Epirus with Syracuse and Tarentum, Pergamum, Cyrene, Bactria
Independent Peoples or Rebels - Crete, Byzantium, other small cities

Philadelphos and I went to great lengths to get this set up and we both agreed it was the best. I know it is not the best historical set up but it balances out gameplay. No two sub factions are close enough where they'd join up. There is at least one or two regions in the way. That way it accurately simulates the small independent states.
If we test and it doesn't work we can try other ways.

[Mausolos of Caria]

I also forgot about Rhodes... what about Boiotia? Can you add that to the ''Cities'' faction? (It's next to Athens but they were quite close during this period and Athens also controlled it partly for a while). Otherwise it won't be able to pose a threat to Aitolia.

Apart from that it's accurate enough. Maybe we should rename the factions, though

[ahowl11]

Well weren't they controlled by Macedon anyways?

[Mausolos of Caria]

Nope, they were allied to Macedon in the late 3rd century, but maintained independence. Otherwise they wouldn't have introduced the Macedonian phalanx themselves in 250 BC and fought a war against the Aitolian League in 246 BC

It's more complicated for Thessalia. I'll have to look up if Keraunos controlled it or Gonatas or if the Thessalian League was free in 280 BC.

[Mausolos of Caria]

I couldn't find anything out about Thessaly. Demetrios had it under his control, but no idea about Keraunos. Do you have an idea how to name the two Greek factions yet?

Also, I found this during my research 

[ahowl11]

How about Greek States and Greek Leagues?

[Mausolos of Caria]

We would still have a League among the States and Non- Leagues among the Leagues, though... but I don't have a better idea right now. So can we add Boiotia to the faction with Athens in it?

[ahowl11]

Sure why not

[The Sloth]

Er, what does that leave Macedon with, though? They won't be much of a kingdom if all they have are Euboa and Lesbos. And wasn't Athens under their control in that period?