The Shadow of Ishtar - The Beginning

[Stephan]

About Carthage, The city was most likely founded around the start date of this mod, so for it to be most historical i world be phoenician colony.

every phoenician colony was very independent
and i thought it was more a fun faction for the guys who need a challenge

[The_Bulgar_Slayer]

Lydia was just another petty state in western Anatolia at this time. They could be added in the mod, but they would be small and week. Phrygia is probably enough for western Anatolia. You could consider making the Ionian Greeks a seperate faction.

North of modern Georgia there was an early group of steppe nomads which feld from the Scythians into Anatolia in the 8th cnetury known as the Cimmerians. They gave Urartu, Lydia, Phrygia, and even Assyria quite a few problems in the late 8th and 9th centuries (even killing Sargon II in battle in 705 BC). They could be added if we're looking for another faction in that area.:hmmm:

[Stephan]

i think we will have rebels in that area


any ideas for new buildings we will need a lot of them

trade route with england or english tin
only build able in the cities near the strait of gibraltar for carthago and phoenicia

picture:

[The_Bulgar_Slayer]

Here are a bunch of ships:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Assyrian/Pheonician Merchant Ship


Egyptian Sea Merchant Ship


Egyptian Merchant Ship


Egyptian War Ship


Egyptian Papyrus Boat


Pheonician Merchant Ship


Pheonician War Ship


Etruscan Vessel


Greek Bireme


Greek Merchant Ship

[dragonsign]

Pottery workshop, effect: increase in tradeable goods

Pottery Factory, effect:Increase in tradeable goods.

[helmersen]

Good pictures and good trading stuff dragon! So this mod will start around the start of the 23rd dynasty of Ancient Egypt.. This will get exciting

[Stephan]

new event: 750BC-Hoplite phalanx adopted by cities of Greece


Previously fighting was
carried out by a relatively few warriors with a shield, sword and spear with no armor and were not organized in a phalanx. Hoplites had defensive armor and fought in close formation, phalanx, a series of rows.

picture:

[helmersen]

Wow! Looks extremely cool!

[Stephan]

its from the movie alexander


events:

776 BC-First Olympic Games are held at Olympia in Greece

728 BC-The Medes are united for the first time by King Deioces

maybe an army under Deioces is spawned near the capital

[The_Bulgar_Slayer]

Nice info and picture. Just keep in mind that Greek hoplites fought with 6-8ft (2-2.5m) spears rather than 12-16ft (4-5m) pikes used at the time of Alexander.

[maxi90]

About Cartage: Yes, it is true that it was founded in the same year the mod starts, and it is for that reasson that i was in favor of making it another Pheonician settlement. However, the literature (prety much our main source of info about the subject) cleary states that Cartage was founded by peopple of Tire that where fleing the city be couse of political persecution. And the first ruler of Cartage, queen Dido, was escaping from the rule of his brother, king of Tire, who had killed Dido´s husband (in fact, all the info i´ve fuonded support this story, and the fact that Cartage was very independent form the beggining). Plus, the distance between both cities is huge, and i cannot imagine how a king in Tire would rule over Cartage, considering our time period.

Be couse of this i think that there are four posible solutions.

1. We kept Cartage as a faction, having only one town at the beggining of the game, and surronded by many rebel settlements. The problem with this idea is that it is unlogical to use one small town as a faction, surrounded by bigger settlements that are, in fact, also pheonisian colonies, and could be used as factions themselves.

2. We could use some other pheonician colony (such as Tunis) as a faction, and then have Cartage as a rebel village (historicaly, this would be the most correct). Or maybe it would be better just to pick 3 or 4 pheonician settlements and make a faction called "The Pheonician Colonies" or something like that. (highly unhistorical, but practical)

3.We could not include them as a faction at all, and use some of the sugested faction to fill that slot (Lydia/Arzawa,Elam,Nomads in Georgia(?)). The problem is that this way the game would be too easy for the Bereberes and the Iberian Celts, since there will be a huge empty space full of rebel settlements in the north shores of Africa, so the game would be a bit unbalanced.

4.Other idea is not to include any pheonician colony as a faction and use the slot to add a faction in Sicily, since it will be just another empty land so far and to put a faction there would solve the problem of the previous point (they would very probably try to conquer those rebel settlements in North Africa). I am not aware of any independent kingdom or State in Sicily before the arrive of the greeks, bu i´m sure that there must be something, be just have to dig a little.
The counter here is that there are already many factions in Italy, and to add one in Sicily would pretty much complicate things even more.

just some though. what do you think?

[Stephan]

i dont think its a good idea to have a sicilian faction instead of carthage

and any ideas how we can represent the colonies of phoenicia and the greece cities?

[maxi90]

when you say geek cities do you refer to greek colonies? if it is, i don´t think they should be in, since the greeks didn´t started to set colonies unitl 750b.c or so..
the pheonician colonies where berely related with their mother cities, so if we use them they should be a separate faction.

[helmersen]

I was thinking; Maybe we could move the starting date? Maybe 50years or so in the future? Would it be easier to have better gameplay and such?

[Stephan]

maybe you are right it would really make it easier what do you guys think? maybe 753

[helmersen]

Good, my first idea for the team

[Stephan]

then we can have the colonies as own factions (not playable) they are vassals and send tribute to you

[helmersen]

That would sound awsome! Would that also be an option for more factions?

[Stephan]

no those are just clone factions so only a bit more coding work

[The_Bulgar_Slayer]

Moving it into the future sounds good.

On another note, we may want Persia to be a starting faction rather than an emerging one. They did already exist as a seperate people by 800BC, though they were often associated with the Medes.