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Thread: Units and their hair, eye, and skin colours

  1. #1
    Laetus
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
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    Gautþjóð
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    Default Units and their hair, eye, and skin colours

    I've just started the mod and played some custom battles, but I immediately reacted to how nearly all of the Cimbri have dark hair and eyes. Tacitus' description of the Germanians 200 years later tells us that every single one of them had "fierce blue eyes and blonde hair". This probably a bit of an exaggeration, but the clear majority of them should've had that appearance. So why don't they in the game? Same thing with the Gauls. Diodorus Siculus tells us that they had blonde hair, and that many coloured their hair to make it even lighter.

    I'm not very well read on how the Romans and Greeks looked 2000 years ago, but I've seen claims that they were lighter than today, for example this thread:
    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...e-historically

  2. #2
    Julio-Claudian's Avatar Senator
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    Dec 2011
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    Default Re: Units and their hair, eye, and skin colours

    The models were likely created without much regard for ethnicity as they are shared by most of the factions as far as I can tell. That's the models CA created not the AE modders. I don't think any 'race' in the game has good portraits any way, they look like they should be in a ps3 game, be they Aethiopians or Germans. Like is there red hair in the game at all? That was famously imported from the north to make Roman ladies' wigs.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Units and their hair, eye, and skin colours

    The op on the referred thread does very little to defend his arguments beyond further restating them with no evidence. he uses the work of ancient authors to support what is presented as an anthropological argument, a science that is structured around evidence beyond primitive historiography.

    Edit: After vetting their only source grounded in scientific evidence (genetics), I've come to the conclusion that the referred poster knows very little of the subject and has perhaps more insidious motivations behind the post. the study cited on the Siberian region is based on 26 subjects, each dated to and interspersed in a very large time frame, it cannot be framed as being a holistic indicator on the region's population, let alone that of the Mediterranean, and it very much isn't by the researchers themselves, it is simply used as source fodder in the op's argument.

    also, a choice quote: "Well, there are depictions of blonde Egyptians as well, and there are several finds of blonde Egyptian mummies (hair color not tested if authentic though). Anyways, let's not discuss ancient Egypt as it has little to do with the Roman era."
    Last edited by The Tribunal; September 09, 2018 at 01:35 AM.

  4. #4
    Foederatus
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    Dec 2008
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    Luzern, Switzerland
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    42

    Default Re: Units and their hair, eye, and skin colours

    I have to disagree with your conclusion about "perhaps more insidious motivations" just because the op speaks out what is obvious - that the game does not represent that aspect about general appearances of the tribes and people. There are old sources from historicians about that appearances of Germanic tribes, not just color of hairs or eyes but also the sheer body size of the Germans back then. Actually in "De bello Gallico" there are textpassages about that as far as I remember it and the Roman soldiers had fear of them because of their different and threatening physical appearance. I witnessed the same graphical aspect ingame as the op (and there is certainly no racism or something like that involved in my opinion at all) and I highly doubt that your conclusion is appropriate. No offense meant, just my opinion.

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