Originally Posted by
Foot
Both Baktria and Pahlava exist as factional entities at our start date, the fact of their diplomatic relations to Seleukeia do not lessen their political weight as powers in their own right, and their endeavours afterwards are such that their exclusion would misrepresent the power of Arche Seleukeia in the east. The Achaeans also exist at our start date, however their status at that time (both on the map and as an historical entity) does not warrant their inclusion, and their exclusion would not misrepresent the Greek City states or the power of the Makedonians (at a later stage) over those areas.
However, it would also be remiss of us to not, in some way, give the player the option to play as these old masters of the ancient world (I'm sure we would have a lot of fans up in arms). We cannot possibly realistically represent the military might of an individual city and make it playable. If we could we would want to give the player the oppurtunity of playing as one of the cities and creating their own alliances amongst their neighbours, but the diplomatic engine does not allow for such a state of affairs. So instead we have to use an already existing alliance, and allow players to play as three, allied city-states from the get go.
Now the nature of the engine in EBI did not allow us to represent this faction properly, that is admitted quite easily. They played, pretty much, as any other faction and that was, of course, unrealistic. In EBII, thanks to an improved engine, we won't suffer from the same problems and the KH won't begin and end as the same faction - the exact nature of the faction will change depending on the players actions. Keeping the alliance together may well involve engineering a war against a peaceful neighbour, or you may instead rely on keeping the number of cities in the alliance small to ensure that the generals and their city-states stay loyal to the cause. Or in other words, unlike other factions, the KH will become more uncontrollable the more successful you are. Unless, of course, you decide to change the nature of the faction itself.
In conclusion: you say the examples of Baktria and Pahlava are synomomous with the case of the Achaean League; we argue that it is not. We argue that the Achaean League is neither necessary for the correct representation of its area, not sufficient in its existence in 272 to warrant its inclusion. Baktria and Pahlava were significant political entities long before their annexation from Arche Seleukeia (there is a long history showing how independent some of these Satrapies, and particularly Baktira, could be).
In return we also argue that, given the limitations of the engine, it was necessary for us, lacking a viable alternative, to use a pre-existing alliance to allow the player to play as the beloved cities of greece.
Foot