Roman Rebels

[Zarax]

Development lately seemed to have shifted away from loyalty because of stability problems and left the roman rebels and IGCS as the only factions that makes use of that feature.

Of the two, the roman rebels are clearly the less useful ones, making them a candidate for replacement.

Now, there would be a few likely alternative options:

1) Bringing back the senate
This would be a work intensive jolly that can be used to give missions to a faction.
The drawback is that it requires renaming internally at least three factions (two romans plus bringing back romans_senate) so we won't meet the civil war CTD.

2) Adding an emergent faction.
Could be used for making an emergent yuezhi horde (aka the ancient equivalent of the mongol horde in MTW) or an emergent faction when one empire crumbles.
The drawback here is that it requires internal renaming of one faction to be the britons and AFAIK no one ever experimented with it.

3) Bringing/bringing back a new playable faction:

Here a few remarkable candidates:

- Syracuse
- Pergamum
- Epirus
- Bosphorans
- Massilia/Emporion
- Numidians
- Britons

[Dom9127]

Did DBH ever get those civil war scripts working? Because if he did that would mean that keeping the Rome rebels would be the best option. Though the idea of the SPQR is nice as long as you get a decent civil war.

TBH I think that most of the new faction you mentioned are well represented by the various rebel factions we have (Numida,Epiros,Briton), and had pretty limited rosters or tiny start ares e.g (Syracuse, Massalia, Pergamum). However I think the Boshporans have quite an interesting position and roster, so hey would be a nice addition.

The idea of an emergent faction is great but not sure what candidates we could have apart from the Yuezhi.

[Zarax]

Did DBH ever get those civil war scripts working? Because if he did that would mean that keeping the Rome rebels would be the best option. Though the idea of the SPQR is nice as long as you get a decent civil war.

TBH I think that most of the new faction you mentioned are well represented by the various rebel factions we have (Numida,Epiros,Briton), and had pretty limited rosters or tiny start ares e.g (Syracuse, Massalia, Pergamum). However I think the Boshporans have quite an interesting position and roster, so hey would be a nice addition.

The idea of an emergent faction is great but not sure what candidates we could have apart from the Yuezhi.

Civil wars are scripts and that means their usefulness is restricted unfortunately.

The extra factions I mentioned are there either because of their historical importance (Pergamum was as strong as Pontus if not more, Syracuse was one of the biggest greek poleis at the time) or interesting position for gameplay (A celtohellenic western faction would be quite unique for example).

The emergent faction could actually be used to simulate a civil war more effectively than scripts (by having the X rebels emerge) or to bring a late game "surprise" (machimoi, numidian, jewish rebellions just to mention a few).

[Knight of Judgment]

why not create a greater map and add india and mauryans ?

[RedFox]

I would really suggest Kingdom of Epirus, or Kingdom of Pergamum - both were major players at that time. Even though Pergamum starts up small, it should eventually recreate the Kingdom of Lysimachus, like it almost did.
They were the force that drove out Seleucids from Asia minor and their alliance with the Romans provided a route of conquest to the east, which ultimately led to the Roman Empire.

So yeah, both of them are quite important... too bad RTW only has 20 workable factions.
IMHO, Roman rebels was a very stupid faction to add - there were no such rebellions in that time for the Romans and it just serves as a pointless placeholder shadow faction. Instead of wasting space with them, more important factions could be created.

[atraps]

i think its already the biggest size it can be (no more cities can be added to the map)

as the hardcoded limit of cities on a campaign map is 200 (correct me if im wrong)

[Maraxus]

If the Roman Rebels do get Nixed can we replace their holdings in Sicily with a slave stack, to represent the Mammertines, possibly make a Mammertine AOR that could use the Italic Mercenaries DMB entry?

Also I made a Senate purple reskin of the GCS a while ago for a potential Slav faction that was eventually replaced by Saba, those skins could prove useful for a Hellenic faction.

[atraps]

i think a mergent faction would be a nice challenge

like the mongols or slavs, invading with huge armies at a certain year

[Maraxus]

Would emergent factions be unplayable? I remember downloading a small mod for BI that allowed you to play as the Romano Britons but you had to wait for them to emerge, just watching a dark map for several minutes until the AI triggered them.

[Zarax]

Would emergent factions be unplayable? I remember downloading a small mod for BI that allowed you to play as the Romano Britons but you had to wait for them to emerge, just watching a dark map for several minutes until the AI triggered them.

The process might be made quicker with the startup script but as no real experimentation went on that there is no sure answer.

It's a shame that nobody really played with BI faction triggers because I'm pretty sure they could work nicely for civil wars as BI had hardcoded triggers for that.

[zedestroyer]

The Bosphoran Kingdom would be a great replacement to the Roman rebels. Let's face it, this is the Extended Greek Mod, if someone want to play with the Romans, there are other mods focused on them. The Roman rebels are a waste of space, so many interesting factions to add and we have this worthless faction occupying a slot.

I would love to see a Bosphoran Kingdom, imagine having Scythian horse harchers supported by the might phalanx combined with Cataphratcs and Thracians. Imagine having a mixture o Greek and Scythian culture.

[CaesarVincens]

I like the idea of Bosphorans, though I worry about their proximity to the Scythians. It could go either way, either they hamper the Scythians to ineffectiveness or the Scythians wipe them out quickly.

Syracuse or Epirus would both be cool, but I think they would die out to Rome pretty quickly. Then again, it could slow the Roman advance a bit as well.

I like the idea of Pergamum, but I think that area of the world already has a lot going on, between the Ptolomies in Side, the Eastern Kingdoms in Nicomedia, the Galatians in Galatia, the Greeks and Indie Greeks, the Seleucids throughout, and Thrace, Macedon, and Pontus all nearby.

I really like the idea of a Celtohellenic faction, it adds a bit to that side of the world, it wouldn't be wiped out or wipe out anyone too quickly, and it adds something new, all the other Hellenic possibilities are pretty much the same as something else, but a Celtohellenic, now that's cool.

[Suppanut]

I prefer emerging faction from the east which would made place that safe in the east become threaten surprisingly.

[LucretiusTC]

If we are planning to give up the Roman Rebels, then I would prefer to see an emergent Faction. If they were the Maccabees (the Jewish rebellion), then the Ptolemies or the Seleucids had deal with some extra troubles in that area. Or if they were the Yuezhi (or the Tocharians), then the Parthians or the Bactrians had to worry about their backs in the later game.

Or maybe we could make some changes with the Eastern Kingdoms, and create similar kind of African Kingdoms that includes e.g. Numidia, Meroe, and Aksum. But my first option would be the idea of the Roman civil war...

Luc.

[Scutarii]

I say Bosphorans. I never really like the idea of an emergent factions anyway, and the Bosphorans are in a unique position to have a really interesting roster and can provide a way to hamper the Scythians (which seem to get humongous all the time). If you reworked the map, you could take a couple NE steppe cities and put another couple cities underneath Tanais and give the Bospohorans Pantikapaum, Chersonneus, and those two cities.

[icydawgfish]

I voted for Pergamon. They were a major world power and a great ally of Rome and carved a sizable kingdom out of Asia Minor. They would have a unique unit roster of Roman influenced units, classical Greek units, Successor units, and native Anatolian AOR tribal units.

[Suppanut]

Could we let's senate serve as Roman rebel instead? By Let's Senate start in uncapturable province and allied with Roman. Senate will gain province which rebel from Roman(senate take over to restore law and order of province) and gain a lot more when civil war triggered to made sure that when civil war happen senate will more powerful than player's Roman.

[Zarax]

Could we let's senate serve as Roman rebel instead? By Let's Senate start in uncapturable province and allied with Roman. Senate will gain province which rebel from Roman(senate take over to restore law and order of province) and gain a lot more when civil war triggered to made sure that when civil war happen senate will more powerful than player's Roman.

There's a problem with that option:

1) AI will never attack senate, it's hardcoded
2) in BI (and probably alex too) that would trigger a civil war which would result in CTD.

[Suppanut]

There's a problem with that option:

1) AI will never attack senate, it's hardcoded
2) in BI (and probably alex too) that would trigger a civil war which would result in CTD.

Thanks for enlighten me.

[Unknown Soldier]

Epirus or any other greek faction will change the balance of power for the GCS/IGCS.

I want Epirus to be in giving a three way struggle for macedon/greece.

Player either takes the army in Italy and fights the Romans leaving their greek/illyrian provinces at the mercy of Macedon or abandons Italy and claims the throne of macedon, teaching the Indie Celts to fear the name of Pyhrrus.