Sarmatians (eg. Roxolani, Alans) should be Indo-European, not Mongoloid

[Cuong Vu]

Yeah, Samartians should be Caucasianoid.

But...Artefacts found in many Xiongnu tombs near the Altai mountains reflected a Scythian cultural influence. I would say that the steppes was really a melting pot, from east to west.

Whatever it is, I still prefer to see Samartians with blue eyes and light hair color.

[KLAssurbanipal]

After Celtic DLC I am sure that CA will make new rosters for Sarmatians like Roxolani.
I hope Alans will be change too. They look like German factions (Franks, Vandals, Ostrogoths etc.) with added some unique units (10 like Franks).

[Darios]

After Celtic DLC I am sure that CA will make new rosters for Sarmatians like Roxolani.
I hope Alans will be change too. They look like German factions (Franks, Vandals, Ostrogoths etc.) with added some unique units (10 like Franks).

Yes, now that the Celts have been taken care of I am now ready to see CA make some changes to the Sarmatians. The Iazyges should also most definitely be made playable as they remained a constant thorn for the Romans in Pannonia for centuries.

I wish that CA would also address their reasoning behind the Alans in game. Why does an Iranian-speaking Sarmatian faction that starts off on the steppe employs Germanic noble swordsman as its early game general's unit and you have to research 90% of the military research tree before they can be upgraded to Alani generals? Why do some of the Sarmatian units (mounted skirmishers, cataphracts, cataphract archers) have an accurate Europoid appearace but others (spears (dogs), warband, elite cataphracts, grey-hairs) are given a Mongoloid appearance?

I have another issue with their settlements having a Germanic design with statues of Wodan all over the place. Why hasn't CA implemented Sarmatian paganism into the game surrounding the worship of a sword thrust into the ground/rock? A Sarmatian settlement would be better represented as a nomadic style camp that ultimately grows into a type of (a result of Slavic influence) fortified hilltop like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[athanaric]

Actually Rurik dynasty is thought to have been of N1-TatC lineage that ultimately arose in East Asia(Y-chromosome).
Many mesolithic Eastern Europeans had definitive East Asian MtDNA such as C and D. Dg1 was found even in a Roman grave.
More than 50 percent of Finns and a large percentage of Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians and Russians carry Y-haplo N-TatC.
All these were way before Mongols.

Moreover Europeans, even Neolithic ones, were very different looking from modern populations. Europe as recent as 4500 years ago(yes when there was already a dynasty in Egypt) was a multi-racial melting pot. It is just that those races were different from the races of today.
Light skin did not become prevalent in Europe until well into the Neolithic or even Bronze ages. There were light skinned people further Eastward toward the steppes but even for these people light skin was a mutation that arose relatively recently < 10000 years.

Would you mind posting sources for all these, very specific, claims? Especially the first paragraph.

If you want to become all sentimental about the glorious past of the White race that was immensely wronged by inscrutable "orientals", you should do it in your own bed. And stay there.

Maybe that's the tone of a normal conversation where you live, but I suggest you cut it out when discussing historical matters with other human beings.

I often find that those obsessed with the appearance of long dead peoples are up to no good in the present.

Yes yes, I'm sure that makes you sound very wise morally superior (in your own eyes). It doesn't contribute anything of worth to the discussion, though. Other than implicitly accusing the participants of all sorts of vile things...

Whatever it is, I still prefer to see Samartians with blue eyes and light hair color.

It's not like they all need to be blonde and blue-eyed. It's mainly about their features and general appearance.

[Viva Espana!]

It's not that it's just inaccurate. It's cutting corners. Copying and pasting units. Making their job easier rather than putting out a finished product. This wouldn't be an issue if they'd demonstrated in the past that they can make this content (it's not just a limitation on their end) and that they are holding content back to be sold, for extra, later.

[KLAssurbanipal]

Why CA didn't change them in new patch?

[daelin4]

Because a difference in cosmetic opinions is not a priority?

[Darios]

Because a difference in cosmetic opinions is not a priority?

It's not a question of opinion, it's an issue regarding historical accuracy.

[athanaric]

Because a difference in cosmetic opinions is not a priority?

Imagine the public outcry and amount of butthurt if in a game about ancient China (or Ethiopia or whatever) the locals were portrayed as white people. So yeah, sometimes "cosmetic opinions" do matter.

[Hanibal__111]

Sarmatians are the Slavic people, the name Slavic was the roman translation of Sarmatian, but the original is Sarmatian. I have this information from historian Polish professor

[LinusLinothorax]

I have this information from historian Polish professor

That explains why he claims that.

[Hanibal__111]

That explains why he claims that.

If you read polish here some sources
https://archive.org/details/kronikapolskama01bielgoog
http://kronikihistoryczne.blogspot.c...1_archive.html
http://wieczorna.pl/tajemnice-histor...ność
http://poselska.nazwa.pl/wieczorna2/...yckich-henetow
http://www.mediewistyka.pl/Chrobry.pdf
http://www.eioba.pl/a/387f/pochodzenie-polakow-lechitow

[athanaric]

Sarmatians are the Slavic people, the name Slavic was the roman translation of Sarmatian, but the original is Sarmatian. I have this information from historian Polish professor

How do you explain the fact that Sarmatians spoke an Iranian language while Slavic languages are related, but a distinct branch of the Indo-European family?

Also, I've read a book on Sarmatians by another Polish professor, and he didn't claim they were Slavs. I think this whole notion of equating Sarmatians with Poles is from the 19th century and should stay there (might as well say "Poles are German"). That is not to say there weren't any cultural and ethnic ties. Obviously there could've been some.

[Hanibal__111]

How do you explain the fact that Sarmatians spoke an Iranian language while Slavic languages are related, but a distinct branch of the Indo-European family?

Also, I've read a book on Sarmatians by another Polish professor, and he didn't claim they were Slavs. I think this whole notion of equating Sarmatians with Poles is from the 19th century and should stay there (might as well say "Poles are German"). That is not to say there weren't any cultural and ethnic ties. Obviously there could've been some.

who told you Sarmatians spoke an Iranian language? Iran is modern country, in that location was Persia, the linguage still the persian
Also do you think people don't know his own history, and the truth about them will be told by other people!? Do you think the american history will told better by Japanese or chinese!? of course no. Only the people know the true of his own history
Also my mother is polish old women and she told me they grandfather know the history from old books and he said to her they are sarmatian people, also old people in the Poland know that, it was a time when there were real books and true history not as today with Facebook and Wikipedia where everyone told every fictional and fantasy about the truth he think

[athanaric]

who told you Sarmatians spoke an Iranian language? Iran is modern country, in that location was Persia, the linguage still the persian

Jesus, read a history book. Why don't you start with this one, it was written by a Pole so I'm sure there's a Polish version somewhere. There's plenty of literature on these people, most of it probably in Russian but there should be more than enough information available in English.

Just because someone is Iranian doesn't mean they are Persian or from the state of Iran (or dark-skinned), in the same way that Russians aren't Polish just because they are Slavic.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Tree_v2.0.png

Also do you think people don't know his own history, and the truth about them will be told by other people!?

Yes. Plenty of Germans and Chinese (for example) I've encountered are pig ignorant about their own history.

Also my mother is polish old women and she told me they grandfather know the history from old books and he said to her they are sarmatian people, also old people in the Poland know that, it was a time when there were real books and true history not as today with Facebook and Wikipedia where everyone told every fictional and fantasy about the truth he think

It was a time when everybody in Europe was extremely Nationalist and claimed some total about their ancestry. What you're referring to is Sarmatism. It's a Nationalist theory, not a scientific one.
Like I said, it's not unlikely that you have some Sarmatian ancestors, however it is unlikely that they're the majority. If anything, Ukrainians are more closely related to those peoples than Poles are. It's also a firmly established fact that the languages of the Sarmatians and related tribes were Iranian. The only "true" descendants of the Sarmatian tribes are the Ossetians, because they still speak one of those languages, albeit heavily influenced by Turkish and Russian.

[Darios]

I love how this thread keeps popping back up whenever someone shows up with more ridiculous nationalistic theories. Never expected Polish Sarmatianism to rear its head though))

So...yeah, there is no doubt that the Sarmatians were Iranian speakers and probably contributed heavily to the Slavic ethnogenesis. The Antes were a mixed Irano-Slavic entity that probably gave birth to Eastern Slavic dialects and created the first linguistic distinction among Slavic peoples (the Sclavenii spoke Old Bulgarian.) It is honestly a real shame that most people are unaware of exactly how wide-spread Iranian languages were in antiquity (spoken from the borders of China to the Danube Delta.) There are quite a few words in Russian and Ukrainian that are directly descended from Scytho-Sarmatian languages.

To close this topic - Polish Sarmatianism was a Renaissance theory where Polish nobility believed that they were descended from the Sarmatians so they wrote books about it and even dressed up in robes. It has no factual basis whatsoever and the first real modern knowledge about the Scytho-Sarmatians came from the works of Soviet archaeologists who pointed them to the steppes of Ukraine, Moldova, and Russia. They also migrated to a lesser extent in Romania and Hungary. I highly doubt if the Sarmatians ever settled anywhere near Poland.

To CA: I'm still waiting for you to fix the "Hunnic" Sarmatian units in the game, give the Alani a cavalry general from the start, and get rid of the majority of those Germanic units.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

(the Sclavenii spoke Old Bulgarian)

That's quite interesting actually. Old Bulgarian was descended from the Hunnic language (the original Oghur Turkish dialect belonged to the Dingling who were absorbed by the Xiongnu and formed the Huns) and considering their location it's not entirely infeasible that the Sclavenii were vassals of the Attilanic Huns or the later Hun Empire of the the Kutrigur/Utigurs.

[Darios]

That's quite interesting actually. Old Bulgarian was descended from the Hunnic language (the original Oghur Turkish dialect belonged to the Dingling who were absorbed by the Xiongnu and formed the Huns) and considering their location it's not entirely infeasible that the Sclavenii were vassals of the Attilanic Huns or the later Hun Empire of the the Kutrigur/Utigurs.

Not that Old Bulgarian but rather the early Slavic dialects (старобългарски - starobulgarski) that were spoken south of the Danube. The language that formed the basis for Old Church Slavonic.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Oh you're talking about way past the 7th century, more like 9th/10th century?

[Darios]

Oh you're talking about way past the 7th century, more like 9th/10th century?

The literary tradition of Old Bulgarian (OCS) stems from the 9th/10th century, though the south Slavic dialects that led to it were probably being spoken south of the Danube from the late 6th century.