Ideas and Suggestions

[vimy]

i believe you are confusing early and late migration of both Hunnic and Bulgars historys

it is better to look at them as conglomerations rather than specific ethnic identities. In otherwords, get out of 21st century mindset and enter the causcauses of ancient times,

you mentioned example of states, they were not states, they were regional aliance of like mionded tribes
they were Hun succesors states in that they replaced the great Hunnic empire
but the Huns, as an ethnisity were long since gone. Outside of the leadership, very few actual Huns ever made it to europe. this explains why the Romans so feared the conical shapped heads of the hun warriors but practically never saw them, most huns had settled by 2nd century bce and only raiders contionued to move westward. The raiders took with them conquered tribes, vast majority of which were Bulgars bvy ethnicity

The states you mentioned had Hunnic rulership, but
They were populated by Bulgars as well as other discplaced tribes.

Bulgars are in fact a conglamoration of or mix of tribes. This is important

We in the west have forgotten their significance, and instead give more significance to names like attila.
This has changed in academia as we are starting to understand more about the composition of eastern tribal history.

As far as the northern, Volga Bulgars are concerned, they come to the picture much later on

At any rate, Its your effort in reconstruction that matters, I will be happy to see your interpretation.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

I know that I've been studying it for 6 years. The Huns WERE an ethnogenic conglomeration but they did NOT have bulgars in the primary migratory group, the one in dacia in the 430s. There were Iranians yes but they were Alans and Suebes and other Sarmatian peoples, not turks. The first Turko-iranians in europe were the Avars, the successor to the huns in dacia.

[vimy]

fair enough

you can see it as you wish

just rember that european migration as well as the history of linguistic development suggest otherwise.

there is enough well documented anthropoogical evidence to suggest that Iranian, or Aryan tribal culture is the root of all western European population. in other words, migrations from east to west is the reason why white people exist in Europe. thats why we call them caucasian, they come from the caucuses

thats what bulgars are
thats what avars are
their all Aryan's

the huns were basically mongols, or very similar, there geography differs somewhat, thats true, but the nomadic nature asw well as the growth of civilized culture is what accounts for there geographic seperations, the hun world essential shrunk in size do to encroachment, until they decided they couldn't take it anymore and started the chain of migrations

they moved into the caucauses
the caucasions, (bulgars avars, whatever) lost there lands and moved to europe

this happens several times in history, before and after and most likly will happen again.

there are a lot of pseudo historians who read a few books and gain a very rigid view of history,
i encourage very much your love of history and I hope you not take this as an attack on you or your 6 years of study.
I wqould suggest however that you not look so rigidly at the names, the fact is the flow was much more organic than what you can find in third party servey history text's.

I also have decades of study, as well as deghrees as well have been to many of these lands in person, have seen there culture in practise and know what they feel about themselves today. presently I am working on a film on thr Khmer Rouge of Cambodia, I spent month reviewing the history, taking interviews from scolars and such. Then Ib went to Cambodia with a survivor and it blew my mind, how wrong I was.

standing there, in a canal, dug by hand, where 20000 cambodians were killed digging it, with a survivor of the genocide with me, who was starved and tortured for three years, and you know what he told me,
he told me how prowd he was, that his sacrifice feeds millions of his countrymen today.

whats my point.
history is not in text books, they are political opinions, informed maybe, but with a bias.

look beyond and remember that human culture is organic and interlaced.

ps, if you are interested in seeing more about my latest project, check out
www.meetmuylen.com
we are doing the editing rught now

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

cool. I understand that the huns mixed with the sarmatian/iranian nomads but they did not bring the vast majority of them over. Those nomads, like the huns, would have simply mixed with the local germanic and sarmatian populataions in the carpathians. There was no large group of bulgars because the iranian/sarmatians were already there. Their turkish rigins may have made the bulgari stand out a little though. The huns certainly stood out because of their mongolo-finno-ugrian appearance. But there was not a presence of bulgars in Illyria et Dalmatia till the first for-sure known turkish migration in the 6th century.

[Constantius]

I know that I've been studying it for 6 years. The Huns WERE an ethnogenic conglomeration but they did NOT have bulgars in the primary migratory group, the one in dacia in the 430s. There were Iranians yes but they were Alans and Suebes and other Sarmatian peoples, not turks. The first Turko-iranians in europe were the Avars, the successor to the huns in dacia.

Where do you get this stuff, theses peoples you mention, are almost the same peoples, so tell me after six years of study who are the Avares?

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Turkish. It's believed that the Avars and Bulgars and that other group that migrated with them were the first Turkish people.

[Riothamus]

i think your information of the bulgars is incorect
the bulgar5s were Iranian and turkish origins, from the caucauses

they first apear in number in eastern europe arround the 7th century bc, mostly as nomadic tribes.
by the second century, the Huns occupied much of there lands and the Bulgars began moving away from there traditional homelands westward.

Many of the soldiers of the Hunnic empire, especially in the latter days called themselves Bulgars as well many non hunnic raiders.

on the collapse of the hunnic empire, several Bulgar succesor states rose, including those mentioned above

Bulgar migration would contine and eventually two bulgar states were creted, a northern one on the Volga river, called the Volga Bulgars as well as an western one, where we have modern day Bulgaria.

Bulgars are the forgotten race of the Barbariab invasion's, They were among the first invaders and they would long outlive the others. The reason why we do0nt talk about them much when discussing WRE is because they stayed in the east for the most part.

As far as them being northern, I think you are reffering t the Volga Bulgars, who idid travel and set up domain along the Volga river in modern day Russia, where they would have mingeled with scandanavian and Rus . Otherwise there main ethnicity is Iranian, with Turkish aristocracy.

Some very interesting points vimy. I'll need some time to read your posts carefully. I have the Bulgars in my RTW BI-IBFD 463AD Mod. An interesting faction.

[rhalina]

Yeah, put a lot of bulgars ! I'll takes the franks, and kill them, like my Heroes of the past... *daydreaming*


Some sources mentioned them since the Vth cent. and many years latre, i need to re-read it, but i think it was arround VIII/IXth cent, with Carolingians killing them and laughting in their winterbarackments about the 'too easy" campaign..

For the Avars, here we are calling some sort of fibulas "aviformes" or "avarifomes" , those ones are stylized to be like birds..

( http://www.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=h...KYS0tAb3tZX0CQ) so, an guy with lot or reason could, without err, conclued they were "an strange people from mars, with apprearence of birds, and skin like gold, they painted on themselves strange fogures, with the rubis_color, and other precious things! .. :p

ok, ok, the dorr is this side, ok, i'm nomore there! ^^


Edit : tu put an suggestion here, why , with the variable skins in medII, not to do (i'm speaking for franks here, i don't know really extacts things for other poeples) warriors with broken shields, or without ?
And is it possible to do some armors witch could make "stronger" the guy who wear it? Like in reallity.. Somes seems to be more strongers, more little, more fat...

( I imagine myself killing fatguys with malus for run on battlefield.. :p )

Another think i have seen on historical reenactments, is tha a lot of kontos ( for romans and foederatii) were painted, looks like the "mikado" game... it could be wonderfull..

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

painted plumbatae and kontoses I don't think is historical. It's for show or to find the darts when you throw them

[rhalina]

For sure, but it could be cool for some bodyguards/elite units with helms -legprotections like in apparat..That was just an idea

[Dodge]

I hope this mod ends up getting completed.

[Riothamus]

I hope this mod ends up getting completed.

Eventually we will get there my friend

[rhalina]

Another idea:
By reading books on the maerovingians and history of gauls arround 350-750, i have seen that some regions have done some "long swords", during the last days of the WRE and the wisigothic/burgondian/frankish years, longswords were'nt used by regular romans troops, as the "damassed foctories", but by francs and ostrogoths some times later..
Why not give these regions some bonus for barbarians armies with swords, or some cavalry of the foederatii with romans? It seems that the noccium's swords, according to Théodereiks in 520, were abble to "cut some armor", it could be an great thing to fight for keep some regions with this bonus..?

Another thing i've red: the official soldiers of rome seems have some little plumb bullets, throwwing them just before the melee.. It could be amazing to have milites with those little bullets..?

[Riothamus]

Another idea:
By reading books on the maerovingians and history of gauls arround 350-750, i have seen that some regions have done some "long swords", during the last days of the WRE and the wisigothic/burgondian/frankish years, longswords were'nt used by regular romans troops, as the "damassed foctories", but by francs and ostrogoths some times later..
Why not give these regions some bonus for barbarians armies with swords, or some cavalry of the foederatii with romans? It seems that the noccium's swords, according to Théodereiks in 520, were abble to "cut some armor", it could be an great thing to fight for keep some regions with this bonus..?

Another thing i've red: the official soldiers of rome seems have some little plumb bullets, throwwing them just before the melee.. It could be amazing to have milites with those little bullets..?

-Will look into doing something around this. Interesting points

[absinthia]

Another idea:
By reading books on the maerovingians and history of gauls arround 350-750, i have seen that some regions have done some "long swords", during the last days of the WRE and the wisigothic/burgondian/frankish years, longswords were'nt used by regular romans troops, as the "damassed foctories", but by francs and ostrogoths some times later..

i imagine this "long sword" were actually a Spatha, as opposed to the earlier Gladius?

[rhalina]

Yes, but the "spatha" is more in actoivity with the non-romans soldiers of the empire, and a bit less long. The spatha, according to it's form, seems to be usend as estoc_weapon, and cutting_weapon, the longsword from barbarians only for cutting..
The roman longsword is made of steel, un-damassed, or with inclusions of damassed steel for it's look. ( as certain barbarian swords).

For romans, I think their longswords factories are mentioned by the N.Dignitatum, arround south -gauls and Augusta-Treventorum, plus Norricum.
For the barbarians, before the invasions, it's confusing, sometimes on one point we have full damassed with steel-fitted cutboards, sometimes damassed steel to the great look of the weapon, sometimes full steel non-damassed ones ( and "poor steel", more like iron.. sticky like the ancient galler-swords..)

Another point is that the searchers thinks the boards of the barbarians swords was treat with an "glue" for beiing more hard, but these glue is an negative factor for corrosion.. ( i don't know with what was made this glue, the authors could not conclue, the steel was so much corrupted on it's superficial structures)



EDIT: here an mévoringian's sword: an round end, an little little more bigger handguard and longer blade

http://picasaweb.google.com/warulfe/...65925837812530

The Handle could be like in romans'aeras, with grooves, or with leather-bands/ect, like ine barbarians aeras.
Lenght of spatha is arround 70cm and of barbarian swords arround 90cm ( according to E.Salin's researchs)

[absinthia]

as far as i understand the Spatha blades found varies between 70-90 cm in length.
it was introduced to the Roman armies by way of Germanic and Celtic auxiliary troops at least as early as 1st century AD.. it would seem that the Spatha were initially introduced as a cavalry weapon, before it was adapted by the legions in general.
as for examples of "barbarian" swords are the Vimose, Vimose II and Sutton Hoo finds. the latter seems quite comparable to that Merovingian Spatha. while the Vimose II sports a roman blade.

as for the "glue" i could only think of the fur lined scabbard recovered at Illerup. it is speculated that the fur was oily to keep the blade free from rust.

[rhalina]

Are you talking about the blade or the sword integral lenght?
For the Illerup, i will read it tomorrow, never heard anything about it

In the case of the SuttonHoo, i hav read that many parts of this was importated from oriental german-lands, and from pontic-coast fatories. It's another point to play with : may the skins could be customized with weapons/helms/jewels from this area.. Germans of the west also copy the easterns products, in an rapproached exam, we can see the difference of the productionway and finitions.

For your point on the cavalry, i agree with, books that a red talk about it, and say also that they are'nt legionaries, like the auxiliaries, the "true" romans seems continue to use short swords in majority, and non-romans spatha and bar-swords, apparently. (the lacks on historical movies and photographies is an problem, they should have done it... Just to make the renactmentway easier for us.. ^^ )

[Team Sleep]

How about 4 seasons per turn?

Tweaking stats so that battles are longer lasting? (Not a techy...couldn't tell you how...see EB I)

No in battle special abilities that raise or lower any stats. (This seems ahistorical).

No emerging factions make all factions playable except for the slave faction.

Having some buildable structures to represent types of government in each province thus effecting troop recruitment as well as what structures can be built, also effecting public order, religion, population etc. (See EB I)

I apologize if this seems like a plug for EB. It's not. They just have a lot of great ideas and tools that they implemented to make the gaming experience AWESOME! They also exclude anything that is ahistorical and prevent the mod from being history on wheels with many un needed scripted events, fantasy units, etc. Your aims as stated by your description is for an entertaining historical total conversion mod. I think that you will find these ideas beneficial to your goals

Peace & Love.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Well, those litle "plumb" bullets" are 2 foot throwing darts called Plumbatae and Mattiobarbulii. The spatha by most historians has been accepted as the primary hand to hand combat infantry weapon of the time, besides the spear (hasta/contos)