Announcement/Discussion: Faction List

[The Sloth]

Well, being an inactive member of RS myself, I know that RS2 has (or had in the beta I played; I have never actually played the final release) one Free Tribes factions (miscellanious barbarian tribes) and one Free Greeks faction (miscellanious greek cities/states). RS1 only had one faction, which resulted in Greek cities in Ireland and the Sahara.

Are you sure it would be reallistic to play as a faction that encompasses both Epirus and Bactria, for instance? These areas never had anything to do with eachother, so their faction would be more a game mechanic than a "real" faction.

I take it that the Rebels are the vanilla slave faction?

Finally, for further reference, here is a link to the French Wikipedia and a map showing the borders of the Aedui confederation. Red are the Aedui, pink their clients, brown their allies, and grey their major ennemies. The map and corresponding article usually refer to Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico

The confederation seems to have included these tribes:

Aedui

Clients: Ambarri, Segusiavi, Mandubii

Confederates: Brannovici, Bellovaci, Bituriges, Senones, Parisii

They also seem to have been on friendly terms with their northern neighbours, the Lingones.


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maps_of_Eduens_people-fr.svg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_Gallia_Tribes_Towns.png

[ahowl11]

Yeah I remember that. Well, we can't really know until we test. The faction list that we currently have is the one that we have decided to test first. Things could always change.

You make a good point. The alternative would be to make provincial campaigns where the player could choose to play as Epirus, Pergamum, Bactria, or Cyrene. Similar to XGM.

Yes the rebels are the slaves of vanilla.

Thanks for the map. Could you put it in the 'Resources' thread? It's kind of a storage for everything that can be used as reference.

[Jubal]

Bactria would probably be the obvious one of those to keep for the main campaign - though Cyrene I'm not sure has been done by anyone else and could be an interesting campaign to do.

[b257]

Bactria would probably be the obvious one of those to keep for the main campaign - though Cyrene I'm not sure has been done by anyone else and could be an interesting campaign to do.

I think either XGM or XCM have Cyrene as a playable faction. But I like the Idea of using the provincial campaign method of XGM, allows for more creativity in regards to the campaign in my opinion.

[The Sloth]

Some more thoughts on factions.

1) Right now we have three Greek superfactions that don't really make much sense when played by the player. Wouldn't it be better to have one Free Greeks faction, and two playable factions instead? For instance, I find it odd that Epirus isn't its own faction (but forms one with Bactria and Cyrene. Isn't Phyrrus' invasion of Italy one of the main reasons for choosing this paricular starting date? Also, from what I've read, Syracuse joined him in 278 BC, not 280.

2) Doing some "research" (the only extensive source I have access to is Wikipedia...) in order to find other Greek faction contenders, I stumbled on mentions of the Amphictyonic League. Does one of our historians know more about this?

3) What are your thoughts for including Illyria as a faction? Did they achieve anything of note that I'm not aware of?

4) And finally, it seems that the celts settled in Galatia only after the starting date of our mod. How are we going to implement their presence in the area?

Having said that, I'm off to work on the stuff I was actually hired for...

[Mausolos of Caria]

1. Yeah let's see what ahowl makes of this, but I think basically your point is a good one. Having played the Greek cities in the Beta that is strange enough to actually play four or five different factions. I see why we make a difference between a hellenistic kingdoms superfaction and a Greek cities faction, but to me the distinction between the latter and the third Greek states faction isn't quite clear to me either.

2. The Amphictyonic League was more of a super- structure for the Greek states to regulate the affairs of the Oracle of Delphi. It was claimed by Macedon, the Aitolian League, Athens and the polis Delphi itself, and later the Romans. Perhaps we could represent them by a trait, but I don't think Delphi is on the map...?

3. Well it seems Illyria is popular with TW players  They fought against the Romans and Macedon in the late 3rd century BC, interacted with the Greeks and later often rebelled against Roman rule, to make it short. I'm not specialized on their history, but obciously they were also split into different tribes (Rome II actually has a number of them), but we have similar problems with Gaul.

4. Yeah that's true, the kingdom of Tylis was only erected in 279 BC as well. But sometimes we have to bend history a little bit I think, if it's only such a short time. Otherwise we would need to have the Odrysian kingdom in it (like Thrace is represented in the Beta) and have two huge Gallic armies standing on their doorstep, with both factions being at war. Or make the Galatians their own faction as a horde? In both cases they might never cross into Asia, though, or the AI might be too stupid to capture any settlement in the region at all.

[ahowl11]

You bring up good points again. One thing you should know is that this mod will not just consist of a Grand Campaign. The Grand Campaign is just a base for what we are really wanting to achieve. Eventually there will be a mod foldered campaign for every faction focusing on that faction only. To do this, we need a certain amount of 'super factions' to interchange with the swap factions. So when you play as Epirus, the Hellenic Kingdoms faction will not be present, instead they will be split up amongst the Greek Cities and Greek States.

Also in regards to three greek super factions. One of them is the old Greek Cities faction from vanilla. The next is the independent greek cities that you find in other mods. The Hellenic Kingdoms represent the different Hellenistic Dynasties that were not the original Diadochi. By having three factions, it will accurately simulate the chaos that was in the Greek World. We will be able to simulate the Achaean and Aetolian leagues, Sparta and Athens, the Bosporans and other smaller states such as Massilia, without overloading a certain faction.

The Illyrians will be in starting with the next BETA version.

Mausolos is right, we will have to somewhat bend history in order to get everything working properly. If the creation of settlements in game was possible, it would make things easy but it isn't. So what do we do? Have Tylis as a rebel settlement and have the Gauls attack it as a horde? Have another Gaul army above Macedon and send them south? Have yet another army headed towards Ancyra? Or just give Ancyra and Tylis to the Gauls/Celtic Tribes to begin with?

All of these questions can only be truly answered through testing. That is why I am bringing as many testers over as I can. Putting something out to the public with no testing can be disastrous, but also testing ideas before throwing them in the garbage is necessary because what if we throw away something that works and we didn't even know about it?

So to conclude, let's test the current faction set up, if it ends up being unbalanced or there are better options then we will make the necessary changes.

[The Sloth]

3. Well it seems Illyria is popular with TW players  They fought against the Romans and Macedon in the late 3rd century BC, interacted with the Greeks and later often rebelled against Roman rule, to make it short. I'm not specialized on their history, but obciously they were also split into different tribes (Rome II actually has a number of them), but we have similar problems with Gaul.

Ah, yes. I remember reading a comic about Arminius, where they showed a rebellion in Illyria. Goriest non-Japanese stuff I've ever read.

As for the other issues...

1) Is there even any need to include Tylis as a settlement? From the looks of it, it was rather insignificant and short-lived.

2) Making Ancyra revolt should't be too hard, and if all else fails, we still have scripts. It just means that we won't be able to represent the celtic migration towards Asia Minor. Maybe it would be enough to have a historic message telling the player about how the celts retreated to Galatia.

3) Damn, there is so much potential with these celtic invasions of Greece. I need to read more about this. But regardless, it will be a very interesting experience for the Macedoniona player - being greeted by an army of bloodthirsty barbarians right at the start of his campaign...

[ahowl11]

Tylis isn't in the current map but who knows if we will add it in the new map or not.

As for the Invasions, it will require a lot of testing and some scripting.

[The Sloth]

I hope Mausolos can correct me on all this, since I only have wikipedia, but from what I read, the situation in Macedon was really chaotic.

280: Macedon is ruled by the former Ptolemaic prince Ptolemy Keraunos. Antigonos Gonatas, son of the former king of Macedon, holds Thessalia, Attica and other parts of Greece.

279: The Celts invade Macedon. Ptolemy Keraunos is defeated and killed by a celtic army under Bolgios. A general called Sosthenes assumes control of Macedon - although he does not claim the throne - and defeats Bolgios, only to be defeated in turn by another celtic army under Brennus. The celtic armies merge and march south to plunder Greece, but are defeated at Termophylae and Delphi. The celts retreat to Thrace.

278: Antigonos Gonatas attempts to invade Macedon, but is defeated by Sosthenes.

277: Presumed death of Sosthenes. Antigonos Gonatas leads an expedition to the Hellespont, where he defeats a celtic army under Cerethrius at the battle of Lysimachia. His victory makes him popular enough to claim the Macedonian throne.

How the hell are we going to represent this?

[Bercor]

We just need to represent the 280 a.C. situation and then let the game flow. Obviously it won't happen exactly like it did historically, but that it's pretty much impossible with the current AI.

In regards to the "divided" Macedonia, maybe set the happiness of all the settlements that were not ruled by Ptolemy Keraunos to very low.

[The Sloth]

Sad but true.

[b257]

Maybe we can re-enact the battle of Delphi? Since were using BI we can use the horde ability to represent the Celtic armies invading. We don't have to do the prior battles and just do the battle of Delphi and mention the other battles in passing.

[Bercor]

The only problem is that the Battle of Delphi occurred one year after the mod starts.

[Mausolos of Caria]

Yes, your order of events is quite right there, Sloth. As for the divided Macedonia, wouldn't it be better if the player controls Antigonos Gonatas, like on RTR VII, instead of Ptolemy Keraunos? Since he died very shortly after and having a Pseudo- Ptolemaic or Sosthenian dynasty in Macedon instead of the Antigonid dynasty would be a tad strange 

I'm not sure how we are going to put this all in game. The problem with hordes is, that this only works when the Galatians don't have any settlements, but right now the Gaul faction also represents the Gallic tribes in Gaul itself, the Celtiberians, the Helvetians and other tribes in Switzerland, the Norici, Boii and Skordisci and probably others I forgot. In 278 BC, King Nicomedes of Bithynia invited 10 000 Gallic warriors into Asia, so they would help him in a civil war. He wins, but then another pretender (Zielis or something) hires the Gauls. Even though he is defeated, the Gauls plunder around, then offer their services to Pontos, make trouble again, are dismissed and settle in Inner Asia to ransack everything around them and give the region it's name Galatia. So basically we have three stories here:

1. The Gallic invasion of Greece and Macedonia, which ends in defeats on the hands of the Aitolian League (Battle of Delphi) and Antigonos Gonatas' Macedonians (Battle of Lysimachei).

2. Following on from the defeat in Greece, the invasion of Thracia and the destruction of the Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace. This obviously leads to the foundation of the Kingdom of Tylis.

3. The Crossing of the Sea into Asia, with Gallic warriors in Bithynian services, before they settle in Galatia (not only 10 000 warriors by then, but four or three ''nations'' (big tribes, like the Aedui or Helvetii, numerically/organisational speaking).

That leaves us with 100 000 - 200 000 Gauls in Thrace and probably an even higher number in Asia, both of them steadily increasing.