Greeks as 'barbarian' culture

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Hello,
I'd like to say, great mod! Especially based on your teams size (1-3 core?). I downloaded and have been playing a little while now (just a few years...) (...in game). And after looking through and reading the forums here, I had a couple things I wanted to ask...

My diplomats are intirely useless. This is... intentional?

And: All of the greeks apear as barbarians. At first I thought I did something wrong, but after looking around I found this was on purpose. I know one reason they are barbarian is because BI doesn't have a greek faction, but was this also done to represent the primitiveness of greece at the time? I have never been a fan of RTW barbarian factions (one of the major reasons being that I didn't like the appearance of their towns) so I have been trying to change the greeks to the greek faction (non exsistant in BI). It was quite easy to change the campaign map appearance to roman/greek cities with white greek walls, but the building pictures and battle map is still barbarian. In summation, is there a future plan to change the greeks to a non-barbarian looking culture, or should I just worry about changing my own version for my aesthetic pleasure?

[Zenith Darksea]

The useless diplomats are intentional, though I think I'll have a word with Zhuge about that. The reason why the Greeks have barbarian settlement models is because some silly person forgot to change them. Incidentally, despite what Zhuge says, I did NOT advise that the Greeks should have these settlement models. In fact, I said that they should have new settlement models, but since we don't have the time or the skill to do that we should give them Eastern settlement styles. This hasn't been changed yet, so I'll see that it is.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Eastern, as in plaster huts and palm trees? Cool... I know very little of this time frame in greece... the historical aspects are interesting...

[Cemendur Telcontar]

so if u guys could find some people to make building models, u can add a patch that makes the cities greekish? cause that would be great! if only tehre were some good modelers.....

[Zenith Darksea]

I'm afraid that changing cities like that would be a very big job indeed. So far only the really big, expert mods like Zhanguo or Chivalry have managed that sort of thing.

[Cemendur Telcontar]

well is there a way to make the greek cities look like the roman ones in bi? or even look greek like in vanilla rtw?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I have been working on changing the barbarian to greek on my computer, however, if you are content with having everything be roman it would be somewhat easy...

In the "desc_sm_factions.txt" in bi/data change all the 'barbarian' to 'roman' and the one 'roman' to 'barbarian' (an unused faction). Then in "export_desc_buildings.txt" in bi/data there is a law bonus meant for the greeks in the core buildings followed by, "requires factions { barbarian, }" change that 'barbarian' to 'roman'. I have yet to thoroughly test this, but most variables of this mod are based on faction name and not culture, so this should work.

But the mod teams stated... /\ ... that they will correct the faction appearances in the future. This is just for my own aesthetic preferences...

EDIT: Changing the culture, screws up the temples, you get "Temple of Hunting" etc... Can be fixed though

[Zenith Darksea]

If you want a more realistic quick fix, you should give the Greeks an 'Eastern' culture. The Vanilla Greek culture is quite inaccurate for this time period.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

There would be no cultural penalty vs. the Hittites, Lycia, etc with that though...


EDIT: By the way, I do not wish to sound insultive, ungrateful, critical, or even annoying. I do enjoy the mod!

[Zenith Darksea]

There will be, because we actually use religions to simulate the three cultures 'Greek', 'Eastern' and 'Barbarian'. If you look at where the religion icons should be, you'll see one of these letters 'G', 'E' or 'B' which denotes the settlement's religion/culture, if you see what I mean.

[Cemendur Telcontar]

hey how is the whole trying to make greece greek thing going? i haven't been on much so i just wanted to find out.

[Mirconus the Great]

Well, it would be best to change the voices to Roman or Greek ones in my opinion. As for the Eastern settlement plans, you'd better let them be Barbarian. I've been in Greece this summer and I saw that Mycenaean, Argos, Thebian cities of that age looked rather Barbarian than late Greek buildings... The only difference is that they were made of stone.

Diplomats aren't useless. I think that this is more rewalistic than the vanilla. Diplomacy can only be made diplomat to diplomat and not diplomat to city, army or other character at TTW.
I've been playing with Ithaca and I learnt many things about your mod. Great work, guys!

[Cemendur Telcontar]

Well yea you have a point Mirconus. I've seen pictures of the ruins, and they do seem more barbaric than vanila RTW greek, but that's because there is like a couple centuries between the periods. And like Zenith said, only the huge mods can change cities, but this mod is great even though I'm not fond of the buildings.

[Mirconus the Great]

Indeed, with 1000 years before the Attic age, Greek world was much more barbaric...