Map Corrections

[DimeBagHo]

Here's a screenshot of a possible canal (the historical waterway took a different route, cutting north, then west to the nile).



It looks like the roads are preventing sea trade from passing through, but without the land-bridges ships would be required to get from Egypt to Asia, which strikes me as a little unrealistic.

I don't think we should add this to the default campaign, but it would be possible to add it as an option. I might add an option with land bridges in all of the feasible locations + the canal.

[Cymera]

Looks interesting, but isn't that a little to big? for the sake of the game it would have to be, but at some points it is as wide as a city! Lol nice work yet again Dime

[RedFox]

Yes, it's a little bit too wide for anyone's taste..
How about you try and fill the whole canal with the landbridge, should give a somewhat buggy, but still a working canal..

[DimeBagHo]

The canal itself is just the stretch roughly between the two roads. The wider area you can see is the Red Sea.

I played around with it a bit an managed to produce an even narrower version, but for some reason it's much harder to get the land-brides working.

[Agathon]

I'm not a fan of the canal idea.

The small provinces at the southern coast of the Arabian peninsula about where the modern states of Oman and Yemen are would be my choice for consolidation. Reducing the number of provinces their by half should heat up the competiton between the Seleucids and Ptolemies to take them.

[RedFox]

Dime: I'm aware that it's the Red Sea, I am pointing out the fact that it doesn't look that good on the campaign map. Would work if you could make it extremely narrow with landbrdges somehow...
Also, try adding some curvature to it, having a straight line is a bit too artificial.

[LucretiusTC]

Dime: I'm aware that it's the Red Sea, I am pointing out the fact that it doesn't look that good on the campaign map. Would work if you could make it extremely narrow with landbrdges somehow...
Also, try adding some curvature to it, having a straight line is a bit too artificial.

I think RedFox has good ideas about the look if it is possible to make that way.

When I slept over night I got the idea about the economic side of the canal. Could it be possible to create a building named "Red Sea Canal" for the sea trade like there´s a building named "Silk Road" in the land trade? I was thinking that certain selected settlements could get trade effect if the player decided to restore it like Ptolemaios II Philadelfos. There could be also some further conditions like a) had to build a port first and b) had to controll certain settlements to get benefits from the canal (e.g. customs duties). Red Sea ports would be probably more valuable then and Egypt would be a natural winner too. But I don´t know how that would affect to the general balance of power in Hellenistic Middle East.

Just playing with some crazy ideas....

Luc.

[DimeBagHo]

I don't think I can get it any narrower than the second pic I posted. As far as the path goes, it could follow the historical path more closely (which would be north from the Red Sea, west to near the Nile, and then north to the Med).

I realised there is an obvious way to control access to the canal - by putting a port at one or both ends.

LucretiusTC: Adding a building is possible, though the three main provinces of Egypt are already highly profitable thanks to the grain trade.

[LucretiusTC]

People seem to have a little bit mixed feelings about this canal, but I think there are also some obvious strategical benefits. If there´s a canal, then the player as a defender or an attacker don´t need to build separate navies for the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. If you attack Egypt and manage to conquer Alexandria and Memphis, it could be tempting, if you could send your possibly strong Mediterrenean Navy to the Red Sea after those successful land operations. Maybe the port of Memphis at the Red Sea could be the key to control that canal?

Anyhow, nice to see the mod in progress..

Luc.

[RedFox]

As the topic is about Map Corrections, i've decided to post this somewhat historical map, based on some research i've made over the internet. It's probably not that accurate, but somewhat depicts the balkans around 280-250 BC



Dark Green - Kingdom of Epirus, modern Albania

Orange - The Aetolian League, a confederation of cities near Aetolia, at it's height, Aetolia had a very strong army and it's territories went deep into Thessaly and even near Attica, some City States, even out of greece, joined this league to defend against Macedonian attacks. (even Athens allied with them, so did Pergamum and possibly even Rhodes)

Yellow - Athens, remained independent for a long time and was allied with Aetolia.

Blue - The Achaean League, very powerful Alliance of many City-States, allied with Macedon and eventually defeated Sparta.

Red - Sparta, mainly controlled only the surrounding area of the city, but also strongly influenced the regions shown as Red

Black - Regions controlled by Macedonia, which atm is quite well depicted in the current XGM campaign.

Now, all that is left to do is to figure out a way to make those work as realistic historical factions.
Most of them were at war, but Athens remained quite neutral compared to other City States...

Suggestions, comments?

[Centurion44]

I really like the canal idea, it should definately be added as one of the options like Bactria.

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

The canal is quite a piece of work. I'm pretty sure it's unique to this mod as well.

Any way to make the roads across it bridges? Would that make any difference?

[DimeBagHo]

The canal: I managed to make a couple of other versions that look interesting, including one where the canal is barely visible, but so far the only version that works with road and sea traffic is the one in the first pic.

If it does get included in the next version it will be as an install option.

Dulce_et_Decorum_Est: Unfortunately bridges can't be done. You need a river for those, and that would mess with the terrain.

RedFox: There isn't much room for adding extra regions in Greece, and single region factions don't work very well, so the Aetolians and Achaeans are pretty much out. We could beef up the rebels in Aetolia though.

[Agathon]

According to Redfox' map and its key I thought the following might yield at least two-province sized factions:

[1] Leave Macedonia as is with Corinth (Achaia), Euboia and Lesbos serving as a subfaction maybe with some AOR "greek" units available to the Macedonian army as auxilliaries. (Elite Corinthian and Allied Iphikratides hoplite units that are harder to recruit like the Spartans could do this).

[2] Combine Athens and Rhodes with Thermon to make the Aitolian League faction, proving that three provinces are better than one.

[3] Ambracia, Salona and Tarentum could be combined into an Epirote kingdom, presuming, of course, that Pyrrhos could have achieved all (or most) of his lifetime career goals by 280BC. (His more ephemeral projects like conquiering Macedon, Achaia, and neutering Sparta and Sicily would need to be achieved in the course of an Epirote campaign - victory conditions could reflect this).

[4] Combine Laconia and Crete to make a much desired (by many players) "Spartan" Switzerland.

[5] Less historical as a faction is Thrace which was unable to outlast its founder, Lysimachos, who died trying to stop the massive Gallic invasion of 282 BC. European or Thracian Thrace disintigrated upon his death, while the Asian or Mysian half of his kingdom evolved under the Attalids and became the kingdom of Pergamum. To reflect this reality, I would represent an Attalid faction based on Pergamum, Sardis and Ipsus.

[LucretiusTC]

[5] Less historical as a faction is Thrace which was unable to outlast its founder, Lysimachos, who died trying to stop the massive Gallic invasion of 282 BC. European or Thracian Thrace disintigrated upon his death, while the Asian or Mysian half of his kingdom evolved under the Attalids and became the kingdom of Pergamum. To reflect this reality, I would represent an Attalid faction based on Pergamum, Sardis and Ipsus.

According to my knowledge Lysimachus (Lysimakhos) died in the last battle of the Diadochi that took place at Curopedium (Kuropedion) near Magnesia in western Asia Minor in 281 BC and he was beaten by Seleukos I Nikator (Seleucus I Nicator), the founder of the Seleucid dynasty. After the victory Seleukos decided to continue his old home country Macedonia, but he was murdered by Ptolemaios Keraunos at Lysimakheia (Lysimachia) in the Gallipoli peninsula in 281 BC.

That Ptolemaios was the eldest son of Ptolemaios I Soter, but his younger brother (known as Ptolemaios II Filadelfos) became to the ruler of Egypt. Then Ptolemaios Keraunos managed to rise as a King of Macedonia from 281 BC to 279 BC and he was the one who was killed by the Gauls in 279 BC.

http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Egypt/p...s/ceraunus.htm


Luc.

[Cymera]

Those sound like really good ideas Agathon, it sounds like it could work out nicely, of course, it would require a lot of work. Not to mention breaking save compatibility, etc.

What about units? Would the Aitolian League and The "Semi" Peloponnesian League have similar units? This could turn out into something interesting, but it would require a hell of a lot of work.... I'm assuming of course.

[RedFox]

Well, I figure it could work, by reworking most of the cities in greece.

I have gathered some more information for the historical side of things.
The Achaean League was pretty much a powerful ally of Macedon, so Corinth could stay as it is at the moment with the lands of the Achaean league at it's control. The Achaeans, allied with Macedon crushed Sparta and upon hearing of victory, Antigonos burst a blood vessel and died.
(could be simulated, for the fun of it, with a script that kills Antigonos, if Macedon captures Sparta.. )

Sparta and many other greek cities were allied with the Aetolian League against Achaean League and the Macedonians.
The Aetolians crushed Achaean League, where as the Achaeans begged help from Macedonia, who were eager to assist.
Spartans, upon hearing this asked help from the Romans, who with the help of the greeks, crushed Macedonians and "freed" greece.

This all works for somewhere around 200 BC, but I doubt it'd work for the 280 BC world.

Though I have been able to obtain this information:

Antigonus placed a garrison at Corinth, the strategic centre of Greece, but Athens, Rhodes, Pergamum and other Greek states retained substantial independence, and formed the Aetolian League as a means of defending it. Sparta also remained independent, but generally refused to join any league.

So, in conclusion, the factions should (historically) work out like this:

Epirus - Tarentum, Ambracia and Salona

The Aetolian League (former GCS) - Athens, Thermon, Rhodes, Pergamum

Independent Greek Cities - Sparta, Kydonia (or whatever is at Crete), Halicarnassus... and the rest of them..


The Achaean League was quite strong, but didn't really last that long, so I figure no need to create a rebel region (or Independent Greek) next to Corinth.
Also, the concept of GCS (rebels) should be replaced with Independent Greek Cities, as in Cities that stand alone, for themselves.

The loss of Sparta from the Historical side would be quite severe, but Thermon would pretty much replace it, because it had a very strong army compared to the rest of the Greek Cities.

So, Sparta would probably get a very decent army to protect it's borders. Also, no Long pikes before marian reforms for the greeks, nor any pikes at all for Sparta before marian.
This means Sparta can't recruit any of the Iphikratean Phalangites and should be limited to different hoplite selections.
And if anyone's wondering, this would be a step towards making Independent Greek Cities a playable faction.

Cheers

[Agathon]

I suppose the real purpose of my last post was to reply to DBH that it would be possible to combine enough high-income settlements to establish realistic factions in the Aegaean Sea along the lines that Redfox suggested.

Thrace is a pet peave of mine, since, regardless of the circumstances of its demise, I thought that it had about as much of a chance of existing in the world of 280 BC as the Hapsburg empire had in the post-Versailles world of 1920. Start the campaign in 303 BC or even 317 and you'd have a Thracian kingdom that would qualify as a major successor state.

And Redfox, I've played Macedon often and long enough to believe that if the GCS states would need to wait for Marian reforms to train pike phalanx units, they would be conquered easily and inexpensively by Macedon in the first decade of play. Moreover, the Greek settlements in Italy and Sicily would vanish under Roman rule in less than four years with nothing but archaic hoplite units. I tend to think that the Greeks were somewhat more adaptable. By 280, they had been contending with (and as often against) the Macedonian war machine for more than two thirds of a century. After Chaironea, if I were an Athenian or even a Spartan, i'd have been making sarissas and urgently drilling with them.

[DimeBagHo]

Thrace was a powerful faction in 285, controling Thrace, Macedon, and a large swath of Asia Minor. By 278 it was all gone, and Thrace itself was over-run by Gauls.

So while it's a little anachronistic to have Thrace as one of the major Greek factions, it's not very anachronistic. The way it is now is actually about right for 280 BC, just after the death of Lysimachus. Macedon is independent again, the Asian possessions are gone, but Thrace itself hasn't yet been over-run by the Gauls.

One thing that would be really nice if we could do it would be to spawn a Galatian horde in 279 BC. Unfortunately that would only work with the BI exe.

[Warmaster]

Just a couple of things to say here:

Why not just assume that everyone is running BI.exe by now? And drop support for those without the expansion and leave it where it is now. Spawning hordes sounds pretty cool to me.

And i quite like the idea for a suez canal. Especially if you do decide to place a port at an end of it so you cant pass without controlling the port. It sounds like an awesome idea to me.

And finally, dont you think its about time we stopped being a "Minor Mod"? I recall someone saying that the plan was to ask for a change once the religion system was implemented. And now it has . Besides, this mod manages to achieve quite a lot more than the average "Major" mod anyway, so i really do think its about time as XGM has moved well beyond its original premise.