Barbarians?

[Archimedes (Principle)]

Um...
is there a mod that allows barbarian factions to build larger cities and more complex buildings?
I'm pretty sure that, historically, the barbarians weren't that technologically behind.

[Kurzschlus]

On the other hand we have no traces of large settlements, with more than say... 10.000 inhabitants in northern and eastern europe. Though some hill fortresses had a capacity sometimes much larger, but those were for emergencies (fortified hill and mountaintops - very impractical location for everydays use of a farmer).

Also the very small numbers of new stonestructures till 1000 a.d. in the former roman territories then ruled by "barbarians" leaves the impression that they wernt particularly good at that, even with all the captured roman knowledge.

Though there might have been larger settlements for a short period, germans and others were described as having severe problems feeding larger armies on campaign. Which in turn is basically the same problem you have if you want to keep a larger settlement alive.

Thus I think it is good as it is.

And sorry, no idea, what mod givs you that opportunity.

[Lysimachus]

I'm pretty sure you can make Large Cities with barbarians with the ExRM mod right? Well, I don't have it but i'm pretty sure it uses the BI.exe and that allows large barbarian cities.

[Caligula Caesar]

No it isn't, but I think it would be easy enough to make it available. Simply go to ExRM/data/export_descr_buildings and find "core_building". Then allow the barbarians to construct the forth tier by adding the factions in the { } after it.

[Carac Caratacus]

what happens if you capture a 4th tier city as a 'barb' faction? I'm happy with the difference between the civilised romans and the 'celt/germanic' nations. I dont think many roman traditions continued after the demise of the roman empire(although a few of the more romanised britons did keep palace-villa's going for a good few centuries after the fall).

[Wien1938]

The basic principle Kurzschlus pointed out is food. The advantage of civilised societies is the degree of organisation that could be brought to bear.~
The basic problem here is that most people did not live in cities until the 19th century, so what we have to represent with a city is a measure of the prosperity of the region.

[Carac Caratacus]

ah yes food, most of the agricultural revolution of that time came from the near east - and spread westward slowly. Also Egypt was very important for food production at this period, and part of why Rome was so interested in it, without food you have no real effective army.