Greek Cities faction poll

[Quinn Inuit]

I was just discussing the superfaction concept with Caligula Caesar, and I had an idea I wanted to run by you all.

The Greeks at this time were by no means a unified faction. However, playing without them would be uncool. Therefore, I propose making it a playable superfaction comprised of these regions: Syracuse, Bosporan Kingdom, Marseilles, Sinope, and Emporiae. Those regions are widely scattered enough that they're not likely to come into contact with one another.

A human could RP all of those cities separately, or as many as they liked while letting the rest rebel, and the computer would treat them as separate entities.

What say you all?


Update: Oh, sorry, forgot. Sparta will be in there, too.

[pannonian]

Doesn't the AI have problems maintaining an empire with spread-out territories? In my experience, Carthage, Ptolemies, Greeks, etc. only start doing well once they've lost their outpost territories, whilst conquering their contiguous ones. One of the reasons why the Greeks do better in ExRM than plain RTR is probably the addition of Epirus, and their loss of Tarentum and Croton.

[Caligula Caesar]

Sounds good. If they don't spread out much... well, Sparta didn't overthrow Macedon, even if it remained independant, Syracuse was a major power that controlled most of Sicily at one point, but IIRC they were in decline by 280 BC. Also, they couldn't possibly hope to make a big empire. I don't know much about Massillia (Marseilles), but the Bosporans were strong enough to withstand the barbarians (and were constantly at war with them) until the 4th century AD (they probably fell to teh Huns). But none of these states were really important or anything, so they don't deserve to be a single faction, but they do deserve to be in the game. Also, though they weren't united, they were "Greek Cities". The current Greeks in RTR and ExRM weren't historically united either. But though these cities will be governed by the same nation, they won't really be able to support each other.

If they are too powerful, you can make them only be able to recruit from Greek and Macedonian AORs. If they are too weak, give them cheap units and/or good starting economies.

Also, consider adding Athens and Rhodes to the mix. Macedon might overrun Sparta otherwise, and IIRC Rhodes was allied to Athens (it definately wasn't Ptolemaic).

[Iskandar]

@pannonian I think the point Quinn is trying to make is exactly the one - the greek cities did not maintain an "empire". Most of the time they were operating alone or in small leagues.
@Quinn What about the rest of Peloponesse, Athens, Crete, Rhodes, the two Black Sea colonies neighbouring the Tylis province?
I'm generally pro, as long as the AI can be balanced into not ruining itself and the macs have a hard time conquering Greece.

[despot_of_rhodes]

Pro superfaction of course - i think, it´s worse to test.
I don´t think, they would do financially badly, because all the colonies, mentioned above, are coastal towns/cities, so, if you let them the Colossus on Rhodes, they could be incredibly rich and be able to protect themselfs against their local foes. The only thing is their navy - it could cause a bit havoc all over the map, since all the towns are ports with at least a bireme recruiting ability ( this would make them able to transport the local troops somewhere else and they may lose to many of them on the sea, living the distant territories unguarded ). Somehow, they must be forced to stay, where they are, to resist the attacks of their neighbors. Maybe one could restrict the bireme recruitment only to the harbors, where there were some military facilities ( and ressources like wood? ), according to the historical evidents?

[pannonian]

Pro superfaction of course - i think, it´s worse to test.
I don´t think, they would do financially badly, because all the colonies, mentioned above, are coastal towns/cities, so, if you let them the Colossus on Rhodes, they could be incredibly rich and be able to protect themselfs against their local foes. The only thing is their navy - it could cause a bit havoc all over the map, since all the towns are ports with at least a bireme recruiting ability ( this would make them able to transport the local troops somewhere else and they may lose to many of them on the sea, living the distant territories unguarded ). Somehow, they must be forced to stay, where they are, to resist the attacks of their neighbors. Maybe one could restrict the bireme recruitment only to the harbors, where there were some military facilities ( and ressources like wood? ), according to the historical evidents?

German and Sarmatian FMs automatically come with the winter warrior trait, so perhaps this superfaction could come with the immovable trait?

[despot_of_rhodes]

That was my first intention, while writing about the "shadow rebells" superfaction, but they were supposed to be rebells, not a free greeks, and of course not a playable faction ). I remember how someone ( aqd, iirc ) wrote, that Greek colonies were quite aggresive to their neighbours, and tried to expand, or at least to fight they enemies not only by defending their cities from sieges. So, sure, one could make their FM immovable, but i don´t know, if this would or would not weaken them to much, while defending themselves ( like in that saying: attack is your best defence )

[Ramiro]

Sound good, But macedonia shuold be tuned down so it does not conquer all of greece and grows unstopable, nothing more.

[Delvecchio1975]

i voted for the superfaction. i seems to me to give the better representation of what the situation was around that time. never perfect obviously, we're talking a computer game here, but better than most other proposals so far ...

[Finn]

Sounds good to me.

Hopefully the AI can handle the distance between its settlements. However I suppose you'll have to wait until testing before you see how it works in-game.

[bladerunner900]

Greek colonies! Excellent idea.

[pannonian]

Sounds good to me.

Hopefully the AI can handle the distance between its settlements. However I suppose you'll have to wait until testing before you see how it works in-game.

Give the FMs traits with law bonuses. Perhaps create the trait "Greek superfaction" which gives massive law bonuses as well as 100% movement reduction. Given Quinn's ideas, have buildings represent each city state or league, and tie unit recruitment to these identifier buildings. There's no real need to use different models for each specific unit, as in RL they'll probably have worn a combo of drab clothing, which doesn't lend itself to unit models, and individualised equipment, which can't be modelled in RTW. Since there's a lack of room in DMB, but plenty of room in EDU, have state-specific units, but give them generic models. It'll be less pretty, but the trend of ExRM anyway has been to aim for realism in gameplay.

[Quinn Inuit]

Wow, this has been a great response in just one evening. You guys rock.

Let me hit a few points that have come up a lot.
1) The superfaction will behave differently than a normal faction. If I understand Cherryfunk correctly, the computer will treat the geographically disparate cities as individual factions in its decision-making. Personally, I think the awesomeness potential here is enormous.

2) I'd love to do each of the Greek colonies as a separate mini-faction, but I think they'd be too close together. Therefore, I'm just trying to hit the really big and geographically separated ones. I'm even concerned about having Sinope and the Bosporan Kingdom in the same mini-faction, but they're far enough apart that I think it has a chance to work.

3) Excellent idea about the law bonuses. I can run that through the gov't buildings like we're going to do for the Sarmatians.

4) I'm not sure I want to make them immovable. It might make the game more interesting if they were more aggressive. We'll see how it goes. It's definitely an option.

5) Don't worry about Macedon. They're going to be literally cut in half...in fact, would the northern Macs (under Ptolemy Keraunos) be a good member of either this superfaction or the Celtic one? On second thought, maybe not. I want the Galatian horde to attack them, and that'll probably happen more readily if they're rebel (given the AI's inexplicable predilection for attacking rebels).

6) I still like the idea of putting the Bastarnae in the Celtic superfaction. I want you all to fear those guys, darn it!

7) Yeah, maybe I should make Athens and Sparta part of the same mini-faction. Any thoughts on this one?

8) I'm pretty sure Rhodes and the Athenians were _not_ on good terms through this period, since they were rivals for Black Sea - Mediterranean Sea trade entrepot position. I'd like to keep the Rhodians under Ptolemaic control, since I think that's more accurate for the early-mid-third century B.C.

[Pat89]

I voted to leave it as it i now...

The Greek faction effectively already is a superfaction.
You could even choose to add some more collonies to the faction (in Iberia and Gaul and such) to mak them more like a superfaction rathr than have a barbarian superfaction...

(multiple cultures in the same superfaction could give problems...)

[Quinn Inuit]

I agree that multiple cultures in a faction could get weird.

The Greek faction is nominally a superfaction, but I want to get under the hood and make the AI treat it as one. Right now it's just a normal faction in the eyes of the AI.