Why did not you make Ethiopia faction

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

Florens, its just a back and forth argument now that will continue to devolve overtime. The game is hardcoded, no more cultures can be added and combining Latin and Hellenic Culture is to be blunt, irresponsible given the historical nature of the mod. If you honestly want another culture added to this mod, make a submod.

And you think you synthethised it well ?

Again : if "combining latin and hellenic culture is irresponsible", then "combining poenic and sabatean culture is irresponsible too".

That's your logic, not mine Mine is combining those cultures is possible.

And, "given the historical nature of the mod", forgetting Kushian empire, who ruled over Egyptians, who resisted Romans, who where a major commercial faction in the area, is irresponsible too, if I take your own words.

Rome is given too much wheight in the decision process.

And, again, we don't speak about real culture, we speak about cultural slot, meaning technicalities. You sound like I wish to ripp of the romans of their eagle, here.

EDIT : and it "devolve" because nobody answers about the real problem (stated above) but only arguing over dogmas.

[TiagoJRToledo]

And you think you synthethised it well ?

Again : if "combining latin and hellenic culture is irresponsible", then "combining poenic and sabatean culture is irresponsible too".

That's your logic, not mine Mine is combining those cultures is possible.

And, "given the historical nature of the mod", forgetting Kushian empire, who ruled over Egyptians, who resisted Romans, who where a major commercial faction in the area, is irresponsible too, if I take your own words.

Rome is given too much wheight in the decision process.

And, again, we don't speak about real culture, we speak about cultural slot, meaning technicalities. You sound like I wish to ripp of the romans of their eagle, here.

EDIT : and it "devolve" because nobody answers about the real problem (stated above) but only arguing over dogmas.

You're the one who keeps turning this discussion into a philosophical and dogmatic debate. This is a mod in the Medieval 2 engine, but it is a mod of ROME: Total War, not Kush: Total War. Of course Rome has to have more weight in the decision process.

You are welcome to make a Kush submod, and I would be glad to try it.

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

You're the one who keeps turning this discussion into a philosophical and dogmatic debate. This is a mod in the Medieval 2 engine, but it is a mod of ROME: Total War, not Kush: Total War. Of course Rome has to have more weight in the decision process.

You are welcome to make a Kush submod, and I would be glad to try it.

God but I really don't know how to tell it more clearly :

- I say if we accept to make concessions with carthage, we accept to do it with rome
- anybody answer on anything but that. "It's insane, its stupid, it's ahistorical, it's whatever".

I fail to see any argument answering that assertion. Any. You are historian, you are academic, so you should understand what I mean! I am not here to be right, I just ask a question that need an answer! Having any intelligent answer at my question, this one will disapear but it is almost more than a page now that that question keep comming because the answer that is given to the question is the very answer from where come the question !

- "It is not historical to change the culture slot of romans"
- "it is not historical for carthage either, and it has been done"
- "yes but it is not historical to change the culture slot of romans"

I know!

Edit : oh come on! It is "Europa Barbarorum", I send you to the FAQ for anything abour Rome-driven mod !

Q: Is this a Roman-centric mod?
Q: Is this a barbarian-centric mod?
A: EB attempts to give all included factions an equal share and portray them as they historically were, without favouring one faction or culture.

Do you even know what mod you are talking about?

[Smeel]

What are you guys even arguing about anymore? We all know the m2tw engine puts a lot of limits on how realistically you can depict the Mediterranean world. EB2 are also giving the non-hellenistic/roman factions more love than vanilla Rome, Rome 2 any Hollywood depiction ever together.

In my personal opinion the eb team almost strayed too far away from the scope of the era already with the inclusion of the indian faction, not even mentioning the Kush. adding border factions that had little historical exchange with more than one of the already established factions and with most of their natural expansion area outside of the campaign map doesn't add that much, and takes away from all the other factions, especially a very culturally distinct faction. Adding something to m2tw is never free.

Floren, I do understand your reasoning that it is kind of arbitrary to put Carthage and Saba in the same culture slot, but I do not agree that rome and the hellenistic culture slots should merge. But what are the real game effects of this that you want to be changed, and would be all right to incur on the roman faction? I'm not a modder, so I can't say I really know what it entails more than the sharing of general portraits? And isn't this more customizeable with the religion feature of m2tw?

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

What are you guys even arguing about anymore? We all know the m2tw engine puts a lot of limits on how realistically you can depict the Mediterranean world. EB2 are also giving the non-hellenistic/roman factions more love than vanilla Rome, Rome 2 any Hollywood depiction ever together.

In my personal opinion the eb team almost strayed too far away from the scope of the era already with the inclusion of the indian faction, not even mentioning the Kush. adding border factions that had little historical exchange with more than one of the already established factions and with most of their natural expansion area outside of the campaign map doesn't add that much, and takes away from all the other factions, especially a very culturally distinct faction. Adding something to m2tw is never free.

Floren, I do understand your reasoning that it is kind of arbitrary to put Carthage and Saba in the same culture slot, but I do not agree that rome and the hellenistic culture slots should merge. But what are the real game effects of this that you want to be changed, and would be all right to incur on the roman faction? I'm not a modder, so I can't say I really know what it entails more than the sharing of general portraits? And isn't this more customizeable with the religion feature of m2tw?

At last someone with reason

You see, I can respect anyone's opinion. It's just wrong reasoning that I abhor. You understand the fact that it is arbitrary, I understand your point of view.

Your opinion is that the boundaries of the map are too far streached (relatively speaking), and myself find it very fun while playing other faction than rome, including (and not a least), eastern. Playing with Parthians in De Bello Mundi mod, it is really an other dimention to have four boundaries to defend with Parthian, instead of reaching the east boundary, north boundary, and then having only one front (south is sea/ocean). My opinion is opposed than yours but yeah, I understand why you feel it.


Now, since you asked about the consequences of culture groups :

If I remember correctly, it has implications on :
- Buildings (how roman buildings and celts buildings are not the same, in the tactic map, and on the description)
- Cities (how, for exemple, Seleucid cities are squared walls and Koinon Hellenos are round-shaped walls, dacian cities looks like camps/opida)
- Portraits (That's why, if I remember correctly, in EB1 portraits of Saka Rauka and Sauromatae are the same), but can be tweaked with the "religion" feature.
- Voices but again, can be tweaked with voice mods, I think
- ...

- Portraits should be definitly different from Hellenics/Roman, but can be tweaked, if my memory is good.
- Voices too (we don't want to see greek speaking latin or the opposite) but the same.
- Buildings... well I suppose the debate can start here, even if there are always loophole (descr image is different per factions, buildings can be entirely created (but it's lot of work), etc) but the basis of the city in the tactic map will always be the same. (houses, roads, unamed bulidings, etc)
- Cities : the most epinous problem here : white walls for greeks, grey walls for romans. That's the difference between the two. (Talking about EB1 for now, since I don't know about EB2)

There may be other informations to gather on this thread or more knowledge I don't have but EB team have.

[Xerrop]

I am no modder, but regarding culture slots: There are only seven available afaik (Eastern and Western Greeks, Romans, Barbarians, Semitics, Eastern and Steppe people). But from reading the FAQ the EB2 team also uses religions to add more variety (and specialize the factions even more). So there are these nine "religious" cultures yet:

- Arid Nomadism
- Steppe Nomadism
- Eastern Imperial
- Eastern Tribal
- European Tribal
- Forest Tribal
- Western Mediterranean Polities
- Hellenistic Polities
- Indian Tribal

Are those nine the maximum possible choices - or can there be a tenth (Nubian) added on the M2:TW-engine without problem? From reading the Takshashila-preview they are grouped in the "Eastern culture" and with the religious subculture of "Indian Tribal" they can get their own buildings and portraits. Could something similar be possible for any Nubian or Ethiopian faction also?

But these are all questions about the game-limitations. To insert a faction you need also researchers, modelers and coders interested to work on such a faction. Furthermore they have to "win" the internal discussions against many other equally justified candidates. This is probably the main-problem with only two slots left ...

[Samraat Mahendra Maurya]

Yeah why not, make an ethiopian culture slot replacing well i don't know Eastern tribal?
And make Numidia something like Ethiopia?

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

Xerrop,

Those are not culture slots, those are religion slots used as culture by EB team.

But you are right.

[Smeel]

It's the maximum number of religions. And why on earth should the eastern tribal go away? And making Numidia something like Ethiopia is even more ahistorical than having Carthage and Saba in the same culture slot.

Edit: Wait a minute, why are we still discussing this? The argumentation is just going around and around.

[TiagoJRToledo]

It's the maximum number of religions. And why on earth should the eastern tribal go away? And making Numidia something like Ethiopia is even more ahistorical than having Carthage and Saba in the same culture slot.

Edit: Wait a minute, why are we still discussing this? The argumentation is just going around and around.

No, the chicken came first!

[maurel]

AND CAN'T WE SEND SOME E-MAIL OR CONVINCE THE ROME TOTAL WAR TEAM TO GIVE US THE TOOLS OR HELP TO CHANGE HARDCODED THINGS ?!

all this would be avoided and the mod would be more awesome than it is now !

[TiagoJRToledo]

AND CAN'T WE SEND SOME E-MAIL OR CONVINCE THE ROME TOTAL WAR TEAM TO GIVE US THE TOOLS OR HELP TO CHANGE HARDCODED THINGS ?!

all this would be avoided and the mod would be more awesome than it is now !

If you could mess with hardcoded and programming information created by CA, that would be an infringement of intellectual property.

[NosPortatArma]

If you could mess with hardcoded and programming information created by CA, that would be an infringement of intellectual property.

I really don't understand why they even care if someone would modify the .exe. As long as it's clearly stated that it's modified, and as long as they give all credit to CA, and don't make any money out of it, it ought to be allowed in my view. A bit OT I know, but could someone explain this?

[Samraat Mahendra Maurya]

It's the maximum number of religions. And why on earth should the eastern tribal go away? And making Numidia something like Ethiopia is even more ahistorical than having Carthage and Saba in the same culture slot.

Edit: Wait a minute, why are we still discussing this? The argumentation is just going around and around.

Ah yes thanks, i forgot about that, please forgive my ignorance

[maurel]

Guy's just STOP this nonsense.


It's more ahistorical to merge latim with hellenistic culture than put sabaen with poeni culture.

Safot Softim biQarthadast was a multicultural civilization, unlike the romans who spread their culture and gave citzenship to other people. the Safot Softim biQarthadast , kept their "core culture" to it's citzens in the capital and the other regions would keep their natural culture and language. so when you put sabae and chartague in the same culture slot, you are putting them in a multicultural slot, in a culture that accepted other cultures.


And the romans and hellenes ? Latin is very, very different from hellenic culture (religion is similar, but everything else is completly different) (we have less similarities between greeks and romans than chartague and sabae).

Not to mention the gameplay issues we would have if the romans got the hellenic culture slot, rome would be able to blitzz greece easly.

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

Guy's just STOP this nonsense.


It's more ahistorical to merge latim with hellenistic culture than put sabaen with poeni culture.

Safot Softim biQarthadast was a multicultural civilization, unlike the romans who spread their culture and gave citzenship to other people. the Safot Softim biQarthadast , kept their "core culture" to it's citzens in the capital and the other regions would keep their natural culture and language. so when you put sabae and chartague in the same culture slot, you are putting them in a multicultural slot, in a culture that accepted other cultures.


And the romans and hellenes ? Latin is very, very different from hellenic culture (religion is similar, but everything else is completly different) (we have less similarities between greeks and romans than chartague and sabae).

Not to mention the gameplay issues we would have if the romans got the hellenic culture slot, rome would be able to blitzz greece easly.

Oh my god... Not even that the "multicultural" argument doesn't make any sense (yeah, they had a lot of culture so who cares if we add one?) but I really want to be there when you'll learn real history and when you'll see archeological pieces of romans everywhere BUT in rome.

Your fantasm of Roman legionaries with small dark haired beardless general will sooo fall like a greek vase on barble.

I hope you won't get traumatized by the end of your pure ethnic fantasy of yours.

[TiagoJRToledo]

but I really want to be there when you'll learn real history and when you'll see archeological pieces of romans everywhere BUT in rome.

I don't quite get your meaning. Are you saying that materials found in places other than Rome are not found in Rome? Because if you are, that statement is incorrect.

[yuezhi]

You mean CA?

[maurel]

YEAH, Lets call CA and make them give us the right to change de .exe

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

Never said that. I mean that Romans out of Rome where so not like romans in Rome. And that a lot of "roman enthusiasts" would fall of their chair if they really knew what a "roman" was.

Idealization is so overrated.