Minor/unplayable factions - make your bets!

[Nicatores]

Nice Map. Hopefully we'll be seeing the Bastarnae which were allied to Macedon.

[ROYAL SIPHAI]

KINGDOM OF BOSPHORUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tadzreuli]

Haha, I'm sure CA has better sources than me xD They probably have hired proffesional historians

last historian from previous RTW was very dilettante, I'm sure, if not, he would never have included Colchis as Armenian province

[Math2]

I'm guessing they'll do a simpler groups of factions, ie Iberia, while not representing all the tribes there

[Engie]

Nice work nicolasete

+ rep

[HigoChumbo]

Updated the op map:




Added the following factions:

• Sarmatians
• Scythians:
  
  • Black Sea Scythians
  • Thyssagetae and Apasiacae (Caspian Sea Scythians)
  • Massagetae (north-Sogdian Scythians) (later Alans?)
• Aestii (Balts)
• Slavs/Venedae
• Pannonian Celts
• Nabateans
• Rhodes
• Crete

Right now there are around 88 factions (if i have counted well), just missing what they might add in north africa (Gaetulians/Garamantes/Lybians) and maybe something in Scandinavia. And of course whatever was not yet there at the start of the game (Armenia, Capadocia, etc).


Btw i also added the map of Rome 1 at the end of the op.

[SirFork]

Nice work, +rep

[Sherm]

I'm very curious about Thapsus and Leptis... maybe the put there this two cities as vassal of Carthage?

Is strange, but i can't imagine other choiche, so if you want add other two faction, Thapus and Leptis.

[HigoChumbo]

I'm very curious about Thapsus and Leptis... maybe the put there this two cities as vassal of Carthage?

Is strange, but i can't imagine other choiche, so if you want add other two faction, Thapus and Leptis.

I thought they might give them to Numidia or maybe make a north-african faction like Lybians, Gaetulians o Garamantes.

Thapsus and Leptis would had made more sense than Tingis and Iol for Carthage i think, but they probably wanted to give Carthage a closer base of operation to invade HIspania without giving them too many provinces at the start.

[Murfmurf]

Brilliant work, bud! + Rep.

[Sherm]

I thought they might give them to Numidia or maybe make a north-african faction like Lybians, Gaetulians o Garamantes.

Thapsus and Leptis would had made more sense than Tingis and Iol for Carthage i think, but they probably wanted to give Carthage a closer base of operation to invade HIspania without giving them too many provinces at the start.

Yes, and maybe also to give more space to a playble egypt, to expand without other neighboring major faction.

However, knowing the history of these two cities, Thapsus should 100% Carthaginian in theory, and Leptis can be more a "client punic city state"
Is possible that they give it to numidians, or other desert peoples, but is very incorrect.

Also, who knows if the numidians will be splitted in Massili and Massesili or will be a united faction

We will see

[spartan_warrior]

Yes, and maybe also to give more space to a playble egypt, to expand without other neighboring major faction.

However, knowing the history of these two cities, Thapsus should 100% Carthaginian in theory, and Leptis can be more a "client punic city state"
Is possible that they give it to numidians, or other desert peoples, but is very incorrect.

Also, who knows if the numidians will be splitted in Massili and Massesili or will be a united faction

We will see

Yes it is really strange that Thapsus is not indicated as being directly controlled by Carthage. To me it would have made more sense to give Thapsus to Carthage and have Tingis as a client state, the same for Leptis.

[Sherm]

Yes it is really strange that Thapsus is not indicated as being directly controlled by Carthage. To me it would have made more sense to give Thapsus to Carthage and have Tingis as a client state, the same for Leptis.

Yes, in theory have more sense give to carthage Thapsus and Leptis instead of the Mauretania coast, my theory is that they choose to "invert" that, becouse so Carthage is Projected to spain, and was not bordering or too near to Egypt.

[HigoChumbo]

Yes, in theory have more sense give to carthage Thapsus and Leptis instead of the Mauretania coast, my theory is that they choose to "invert" that, becouse so Carthage is Projected to spain, and was not bordering or too near to Egypt.

The thing i don't understand... i get the impression they will be making a lot of "fantasy" confederations (like iberians or Illyrians) to reduce the total number of factions, yet striping carthage on Leptis Magna and Thapsus almost forces them to create at least 1 extra unnecesary faction to fill the gap.

I honestly don't think they create an extra faction (like Gaetulians o Garamantes), but also i doubt they give it to Cyrene (they would make a lonely city state look like a fully fledged big kingdom, and I'm not even sure it will make it into the game) or to the Ptolemies (specially if they are playable, they would not only have an unhistorical start, but they also would have too many provinces to fit the normal TW meta and would be too close to Carthage).

I guess they will be quite flexible with the dates again and give it to Numidia, making it look somewhat like this (200b.c.):



I don't know how correct that map is (for starters, the big "Celtiberians" label in norther Hispania hurts. Celtiberians (a particular tribe group) and Iberian/Hispanic/Spanish celts (all the celts in Iberia) are not equivalent, it would be like labelling allt he italian tribes as "Samnites"), but i guess it could be quite close to that, save Mauretania (if included) and Numidia having a lot of less land in the coastal regions of modern Morocco and Algeria (since they belong to Carthage)

Anyways, just for the fun and to prove people are full of bull******, here is a completelly different looking map of that very same year =)





Although, quoting wikipedia, this paragraph could justify them as a faction:

according to Herodotus, they were "a very great nation" who herded cattle, farmed dates, and hunted the "Ethiopian Troglodytes", or "cave-dwellers" who lived in the desert, from four-horse chariots.[3] Roman depictions describe them as bearing ritual scars and tattoos. Tacitus wrote that they assisted the rebel Tacfarinas and raided Roman coastal settlements. According to Pliny the Elder, Romans eventually grew tired of Garamantian raiding and Lucius Cornelius Balbus captured 15 of their settlements in 19 BC.

Scarred and Tatooed guys raiding 4-horse chariots hunting cavemen... sounds pretty hardass. And it's quite close to the justification of the Iceni (hardass painted jerks who used chariots and way too much hair oil)


Wikipedia also mentions they settled mainly around the modern region of Fezzan, which is a big part of the in-game province of Leptis:



Also, from the Fezzan Wikipedia article:

Fezzan, as part of the Garamantes State, was a client state of the Roman Empire and benefited from Roman civilization.
With the end of the Roman Empire and the following commercial crisis, Fezzan started to lose importance: the population was greatly reduced because of the desertification process of the Sahara during the Middle Ages.

I havent looked very deep into it, but for the cities mentioned, i think this map is probably the most accurate (aparently it's 220b.c):

[Sherm]

Well, The today libya is a very artificial country, so the name used today are very different from the one of the tradition, for Fezzan.

For Fezzan, is intended the pure desert, a part never controlled by Rome. They controlled the part exactly covered by the province of Africa, that in different ages is called Tripolitania, the coastal today libya (without cyrenaica). And actually in this map we see as provinces only the province of Africa. There we should find this provinces controlled only by punics colonies, directly or not directly linked with carthage.

The Numidians expanded in these zones, after the second punic war. Carthage was defeated, and Massinisa allied with Rome, contolled a great numidian kingdom, from Mauretania to Leptis area.

[HigoChumbo]

Yes but i doubt they make a new fantasy phoenician nation for no reason, specially if they want to keep the faction count low.

In any case, i believe desertification in northern africa was not as pronounced as it is today.


I know modern names are not always equivalent to the old ones, but I'm just speculating on how they might occupy in-game the provinces of Leptis and Thapsus, that, as you say, should belong to Carthage from an strictly historical point of view.

The Numidians expanded in these zones, after the second punic war. Carthage was defeated, and Massinisa allied with Rome, contolled a great numidian kingdom, from Mauretania to Leptis area.

I honestly think they will end up just giving everything to Numidia, from Mauretania to Cyrene.

[Sherm]

However, also the status of Cilicia is "?"

We not have a faction reveal today, so the mistery will continue.

[Sherm]

In my opinion also Sarmatia will be divided in various tribes like Roxolans etc..

[HigoChumbo]

Updated the map with some work in progress, there are probably a lot of mistakes (specially in Arabia):





Added:

• Colchian independent states (east of the Black Sea)
• Independent Palmyra (Arabia)
• Lyhian Kingdom (Ancient Dedanite Kingdom) (Arabia)
• Gerrha (Arabia) (I believe it was a city state but they gave it a huge region, so the looks are probably weird).
• Qedarite Kingdom (arab-semitic nomads)
• Blemmyes (Nomadic Nubians)
• Kingdom of Kush (Meroe)
• Lybian Nomads (Nassamones?)
• The approximate location of Garamantes and Gaetulians

Changed:

• Bastetani for Bastetani & Contestani

Removed:

• Nabateans (They will probably be in, occupying the region CA named Nabatea, but since they original historical territory is occupied by egypt in-game, i removed them)
• Egyptians from Cyprus (I believe the island belonged to the Ptolemies when the game starts, but CA didn't give it to them so i just changed it for a big, red question mark).

Nothing impressive, in this update most of the work has gone to adapting the old boundaries to the new spartan_warrior's map.

Feel free to give me suggestions and corrections. Specially for the regions marked with a question mark (except for those that we know what was there historically but CA changed it, like Thapsus, Ibossim and Leptis, which should belong to Carthage).

[Serkelet]

Keep your hopes high. Having announced that there will be 117 factions, leaves a lot of room for loads of tribes!