pink elephants?
>>>India<<<
When Alexander conquered north western India he left behind several satraps. In only 3 years 323-320 BC the entire north west had been fully occupied and defeated. These satraps left by Alexander were conquered but this was not to say there was not a vestige of Greek culture left in the area.
Chandragupta Maurya had taken advantage of the power vacuam and tumult in the wake of Alexander's death to form what would become one of the largest political and military empire in ancient India. The Mauryan Empire!
It was founded in 321 BC and with an area of 5,000,000 km2, it was one of the world's largest empires in its time, and the largest ever in the Indian subcontinent and the Mauryan Empire was perhaps the greatest empire to rule the Indian subcontinent until the arrival of the British.
The population of the empire has been estimated to be about 50-60 million making the Mauryan Empire one of the most populous empires of the time. Along with a military of 600,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, and 9,000 war elephants!
As far as I know ancient Indian warfare which was heavily based on elephants and the chariots. We will be focusing heavily on getting those things first. As we post, the current CATW map is being changed into Anarchon's version which has been worked on for 5 years. It has intimate historical details such as names,regions, key towns/cities etc all covered in exquisite detail.
>>>Factional Decisions<<<
We are busy making decisions as to which factions are best to replace/take out and or merge. Also, CATW may soon become an alexander only release as we plan to take full advantage of the extra 256 model spaces we have to work with there.
Though I should mention Baktria, the faction that has the ability to march west into Seleucid territory, north into Scythian territory, east into indian territory and further east into Xiongnu territory would be rather interesting. So we do have many plans and as I just mentioned the Xiongnu empire is in the works to. Though a historical inaccuracy and inclusion of the Zhou, Qin or Han Empires into the Xiongnu and simply call them the Asian Confederacy. That might be more interesting and a more fun campaign for the varied units? Either way here is a write up on the Xiongnu which were a confederacy of nomads. The Qin and Han came 50 years after the current campaign start. However,they lasted until the end.
>>>Xiongnu/Qin/Han Kingdoms(The Three Kingdoms??)<<<
I like to think of the Xiongnu as the early Huns. They were certainly similar although our basis of information comes from translations of Chinese transcripts about them. From what we gather they were an ancient nomadic based people. Their relationship with the Chinese dynasties were confusing to say the elast, with repeated periods of military conflict though it alternated with exchanges of tribute, trade, and marriage treaties. There were petty raids on China, particularly against the states of Zhao and Qin although the nomads were the barbarians which the Chinese built the Great Wall to defend from. Before the great wall there were beacons and other organized defenses made to prevent the nomads from enroaching to far into their territory.
At one point the King of the Zhou dynasty, You by name had a wife named Bao Si. Bao was a low born peasant who entered into the kings favour and eventually ousted his queen. He made Bao his new queen and they did not live happily ever after. She was a melanchony person of great beauty and the king would grant people a reward if only they could make her laugh. Someone at the court suggested lighting the warning beacons usually used to summon armies from the surrounding vassal states in times of danger. The nobles duly arrived at the court only to find themselves laughed at by Bao Si. The King continued to abuse the warning beacons in order to make Bao laugh until the nobles lost their trust in the beacons and simply stopped coming.
The queen he had deposed of had an angry father who mounted an attack on King You's palace in conjunction with Quanrong nomads. King You called for the nobles with the beacons but none came. In the end, King You and Bofu were killed and Bao Si was captured at Xi (戲/戏). King You's death marks the end of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the beginning of the Spring and Autumn Period of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.
The Eastern Zhou dynasty was lasted a great deal longer as something similar to the feudal system. The kings of this dynasty eventually had their authority undermined and became insignificant figure heads. Which is one of the reasons I am considering merging all 3 dyansties. Perhaps even naming them 'The Three Kingdoms'.
Edit:
>>>Qin<<<
The Qin dyansty was a powerful millitary empire. Though after the death of the first king his son became a chesspiece of the eunachs at court (historically eunachs were kept since real men could confuse blood lines and it made kings feel safer). He was eventually killed in the scheming produced by the eunachs and in the turmoil after a Chu lieutenant seized power and established the Han dyansty in aprox 250BC.
>>>Han<<<
The Han Dynasty was an age of economic prosperity and saw a significant growth of the money economy first established during the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1050–256 BC). To pay for its military campaigns and the settlement of newly conquered frontier territories, the government nationalized the private salt and iron industries in 117 BC. These government monopolies were repealed during the Eastern Han period, and the lost revenue was recouped through heavily taxing private entrepreneurs. The emperor was at the pinnacle of Han society. As I mentioned they had emperors not kings.
The Han dynasty also drove out the Xiongnu and had several sucessful millitary campaigns etc. They were a force to be reckoned with.
Accordingly if the proposal to call them 'The Three Kingdoms' and historical innacuracy is approved then their units will be a mix of foot infantry and cavalry. The chinese also had some good crossbowmen outclassing the gaestrophes of the greeks. I have a couple of units in mind for them already.
Edit#2:
I seem to have forgotten Baktria.
>>>Baktria<<<
Alexander conquered Sogdiana and Iran. In the south, beyond the Oxus, he met strong resistance from the natives. After two years of war and a strong insurgency campaign, Alexander managed to establish little control over Baktria which he was annoyed at. After Alexander's death, the Macedonian empire was eventually divided up between generals in Alexander's army. Baktria became a part of the Seleucid Empire.
The Macedonians, especially Seleucus I and his son Antiochus I), established the Seleucid Empire and founded great many Greek towns. The Greek language became dominant for some time there which speaks volumes in itself.
Strangely enough, Greek culture was more prominent in Baktria than in areas far closer to Greece! This can possibly be explained by past deportations of Greeks to Baktria. During the reign of Darius I, the inhabitants of a Greek city were deported to Baktria for refusing to surrender assassins.
Xerxes also settled the descendants of Greek priests who had once lived in western Asia Minor who had betrayed the temple to him. Interesting fact, Herodotus records a Persian commander threatening to enslave daughters of the revolting Ionians and send them to Baktria.
The Greco-Bactrian empire was completely overthrown though, first by the Sakas, and then by the Yuezhi,who had conquered Baktria by the time of the visit of the Chinese envoy Zhang Qian (circa 127 BC), who had been sent by the Han emperor to investigate lands to the west of China. (which makes for a good alternate history campaign eh? )
This does not mean that mass deportations of Greeks were the norm for that time, it does mean that Baktria had a heavy prescence of Greeks and Greek descendants. It also means that Baktria had a great selection of Greek and native units. It has several options in which to expand but also the possibility of war on many fronts!