Aldandil
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Posts posted by Aldandil
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ill look into those ones
I can post or PM the descriptions I have.
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I will convert you yet!
I understand the reason for using the African animals, and your argument does make sense. I guess it's the European-specific reference point of the name Cro-Magnon, and the European nature of the Titans, that makes me leery of using cryptids from far afield. But... you have a good point.
Must... not... be... persuaded.
The Polynesians can have the giant eagle, though. Not only did giant, moa-eating eagles live in New Zealand, but the Maori have myths about them.
On the subject of cryptids, there are a few more you haven't listed that may interest you: the Nandi Bear (aka Duba, Kerit, Chimisit, Kikambangwe, Vere, Sabrookoo) which resembles a giant, shaggy hyena (one of its names could simply be used for the prehistoric giant hyena, if you wanted); the Guiafairo (aka Kikiyaon, Soul Cannibal), a flying, pterodactyl-like creature supposedly summoned by witches; and the Sasabonsam, a bizarre flying humanoid cryptid.
Actually, most of those dinosaur-like cryptids I haven't heard of, and I'm quite curious to know more about them. Is there info about Churubusco, Kasai (Rex?), Mbielu-mbielu-mbielu, Muhuru, Ngoubou, Nguma-monene, and/or Ngoima online?
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Yeah, I prefer the idea of using cryptids for dinosaurs. As you said, cryptids are a kind of mythical creature. The trouble to me is using cryptids that come from modern cultures, living today, that (given infinite time and resources) would actually be their own factions. For example, the Kongamato belongs to the myths of some modern African ethnic group who aren't any more prehistoric than the Greeks and their Centaurs.
Of course, the problem with using European cryptids is that they, too, are associated with more recent, historical ethnic groups. It's an issue for all cryptids.
It's kinda too bad that the European cave-painters were so dedicated to recognizable depictions of real animals. If they'd knocked themselves out with painting all sorts of fantastical monsters, none of this would be a problem.
As it is, their art only features three fantastical beings that I know of: the "licorne," the deer-man "sorcerer," and the "lion man."The Greeks did refer to the unknown prehistoric animals of Samos Island as Neades. (Neades is the plural -- I don't know what the singular is, maybe Neas). The fossils seem to be Miocene in age, and include Deinotheres (similar to elephants), Ancylotheres (a chalicothere genus), and/or Chilotheres (large, hornless rhinos with sharp teeth). The Deinotheres and Chilotheres are pretty similar to the mammoth and Pleistocene hippo, so personally I'd choose the Ancylothere, call it Neas, and give it the ability to cause a very small earthquake with its roar (based on the myths, based on the fossils!).
Or.... you could completely turn it around and make all the dinosaurs into Taniwha varieties, and give them all to the Polynesians. I don't know if dinosaurs lived in Polynesia (probably not) but it fits the Taniwha (though personally I'm fond of draconic Taniwha).
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The problem with trying to base it on evidence about real paleolithic religion is that there is too little information. No scholars actually know what the cave-paintings, plump woman/goddess/fertility scuptures, or lion-man figure represented or what they were for. People can make reasonable guesses that could be true, but there's no way to know. If you see some "theory" that claims to know, it's wise to be skeptical. Likewise, the religions of other non-writing cultures (like neolithic people, and the Minoans) are unknown. Hence, using Titans (or animal-gods) is still a better idea.
We're just going to have to agree to disagree about using dinosaurs as myth units. Or perhaps I can convince you that the "dinosaurian" editor-only faction could have dinosaurs and pterosaurs for all their myth units, and the Cro-Magnons could have just ice-age animals, a wizard/magician/sorcerer, a shapeshifting deer-man, a lion-headed man, cryptids (just European, North African, and West Asian, since the Titans are a Mediterranean pantheon) and... mammoth mahouts! In fact I thought of a few more extinct animals you could use:
Pygmy Hippo. An extinct animal of Cyprus. It's small, but it still has a nasty bite.
Sivathere. A horned animal related to giraffes, but more resembling a moose.
Elasmothere. A huge rhinoceros the size of a mammoth, with a massive forehead horn several feet long. Also known as the "Giant Unicorn."
You could stretch it to include animals from the early Pleistocene, then you could also use giant hyenas, mastodons (Anancus, four-tuskers, and/or Gomphotheres), full-sized hippos, and giant wild dogs.
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I suggest not blatantly taking names from the books, especially since they don't really fit and there's no need. Every other faction will have special names for their units, so it should be fine to use mdoern English for just one faction.
I admit, I'm having trouble inventing an animal totem pantheon. I can try to help with god powers or technology (I doubt I'll be able to contribute many) if you tell me which gods in which pantheons are missing what. (unless the list of what you've already invented is shorter!). Otherwise, here're my animal gods ideas:
Tarpan
-- "good" god of fertility
Town: Sabreteooth, Shelk
City: Bear, Deer
Empire: Wheat, Wolf
Legend: Willow, Sturgeon
Improves speed of all units.
Aurochs
-- "neutral" god of hunting
Town: Mammoth, Shelk
City: Beaver, Bear
Empire: Bison, Wheat
Legend: Raven (or Eagle), Willow
Lion
-- "evil" god of war
Town : Mammoth, Sabreteooth
City: Beaver, Deer
Empire: Bison, Wolf
Legend: Raven (or Eagle), Sturgeon
Improves attack damage of all units.
Beaver
- god of building and engineering
- benefits buildings, making them faster to build
Bear
- improves the efficiency of your citizens in gathering wild food
- myth unit: cave bear
Sturgeon
- god of the waters
- improves the speed or strength of boats (they've got to have some boats, right?)
Deer
- god of magic
- benefit: something that makes your magic-wielding units more effective, maybe improving their speed
- myth unit: deer shapeshifter (or technology that lets the regular shamans/clerics/magicians shapeshift into deer)
http://www.museoorigini.it/pagina85.html
Mammoth
- myth unit: woolly mammoth
Sabretooth
- myth unit: sabretooth
Shelk
- myth unit: giant deer
Wheat
- god of agriculture
- improves the yield of crops and efficiency of your citizen farmers
Willow
- god of healing and medicine
- benefits healers by buffing how much they can heal, or allowing you to research a tech that gives them a stronger healing power
Wolf
- god of cooperation and community
- myth unit: pack of dire wolves
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Hmmm... what units do the Cro-magnons have? Do they have cavalry, for example? Boats?
Or feel free to tell me you don't want to give them animal totems, then I won't go to the trouble of making them up. The Titans actually work fine, Cro-Magnons is a just strange name to me.
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I have no modding, graphics, or programming skills.
If I did, I'd try to contribute to 0 A.D. -
I see, so your intention is to continue in history as you continue with the series?
I can skip my ideas for a Egyptian and Babylonian Civilisation then.
But I want an Egyptian civilization! Don't you want to pit the dying Republic against the Ptolemies? I do!
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Oh, OK, that would be fun too. I was imagining an army of fauns (with Roman buildings and ships) fighting a three-way battle against an army of werewolves (with Slavic buildings), and an army of vampires (with Greek ships and buildings) and similar scenarios. But humans forming alliances with mythical races could be fun as well.the main idea i had with "fake" factions is more that they would just be for campaigns, like suppose theres a norse campaign and they need to form an alliance with some dwarves in order to beat some giants. instead of bullshitting our way through with having only dwarf villager units and "Heroes of Ragnarok" like in AOM (which came in male, female, and dwarf variations in that game because they were modeled after norse villagers), there would just be dwarf variations that function exactly the same as regular units. their appearances only would be different, otherwise acting exactly the same, so it could go for any faction. what im mainly trying to do is just come up with two or three fake factions for each real one, even though they work for any faction
You know, now that I think about the good, neutral, and evil division of major gods.... how do you do that with the Christians? I mean, you can interpret the New Testament God as good and make Jesus the good god, and interpret the Old Testament God as neutral, but maybe it'd be better to make all of the "gods" be angels and demons (and Lucifer is a fallen angel, so he still works) and just leave God and Jesus in the background.
tbph, thee reason i havent given the cro-magnons animal-worship is because im finding it to be incredibly difficult to make up their gods, even though theres a good amount of evidence. i mean, i dont want them to just worship "Sun" or "Sky" or "Wind" or stuff like that. my actual justification for giving them pre-olympian deities stems from WAAY back when i first came up with the idea for a prehistoric faction. basically, since the olympians ruled over the bronze age world, pre-olympian deities--ie, the titans--would be ruling over the pre-bronze world, as in when there were cavemen and such. i DID have some ideas for an animal-worship pantheon, though, partly based on a series of books set in prehistoric europe. i had two major gods down, Ursus (bear-spirit) and Panthera (lionness-spirit) but i didnt get much further than that. if i can get more information on that, though, you can bet ill look into itI forgot that the Cro-Magnons include neolithic people living right before the bronze age. The name Cro-Magnons is throwing me off, I keep thinking they're only paleolithic. Yes the Titans can make sense for a Neolithic group. Prometheus is a minor god though, at least for the Greeks, so maybe you could make Rhea the "good" god and Gaia the "neutral" god. Sometimes Gaia helps the Titans, sometimes she helps the Olympians, sometimes she tries to overthrow whoever happens to be in power at the time. Kronos of course is the perfect evil major god, 'cause well, he's evil.
In any case, if using animal gods, it isn't necessary to base it on the Clan of the Cave Bear (I'm guessing that's the book series you refer to.) I can try to come up with it. What are the criteria for gods? Do you have a list of specific things (like agriculture, armor, hunting) that must have minor gods? How many god powers, technologies, unique heroes, and myth units does each major or minor god need to have? I don't know how you are building these pantheons, so if you can give me a template, I'll come up with something to fill in the blanks.
By template, I mean something like this:
MAJOR GOOD GOD
>god power
>1st land myth unit
>2nd land myth unit
>water myth unit
>technology/thing it improves for the faction
MINOR GOD OF XYZ
>god power
>myth unit
>technology/thing it improves
MINOR GOD OF ABC
>god power
>myth unit
>technology/thing it improves
etc.
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The idea of transforming all the factions into mythical creatures ... that could be pretty fun, actually, the more I think about it. Werewolves and vampires you can give to the Greeks as well as the Slavs -- although they'd have to have separate unit graphics for each. The satyrs, centaurs, dwarves, vampires, and werewolves would be fun, but some of the others -- especially the dinosaurs (and for that matter the Cro-Magnons) -- are fantasy, not myth. And IMO the human groups should either have their own faction or not be in the game. I'd like to see a second African faction, in addition to the Egyptians, as a full faction. I don't see what dinosaurs have to do with cave-men, either -- it looks really out of place to me. Instead you could give Cro-Magnons Lion-men. And you could give the Polynesians Turehu or Patupaiarehe, or even Manaia. The Chinese could have Huli Jing (Fox-folk). You could give the Aztecs Jaguar-men (and the regular Aztecs should totally have a shapeshifting Werejaguar as a myth unit!).
Here's the Lion-man statue from which I got the idea -- it's made out of mammoth ivory and is between 30,000 and 28,000 years old:
http://robertarood.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/lion-man1.jpg
Unfortunately, it just occured to me that the centaurs might not work out, because they eliminate the distinction between a faction's cavalry and infantry units.
How's this:
Dwarves (Norse)
Other kind of Dwarves (Egyptians)
Fauns/Satyrs (Greeks and Romans)
Vampires (Slavs and Greeks)
Werewolves (Slavs and Romans)
Alfar (Norse)
Huli Jing/Fox-folk (Chinese)
Lion-folk (Cro-Magnons)
Patupaiarehe (Polynesians)
Manaia (Polynesians)
Jaguar-folk (Aztecs)
Giving the Cro-Magnons Greek gods... I don't like it. I'd rather see them given animal "totems" like Mammoth, Lion, Tarpan, Aurochs, Rhino, Beaver, Wolf, Caribou, Bear, Bison, etc. Maybe include some really important plants, like Willow (giving a bonus to all healers). I guess Lion could fill in for the "evil" god, or better yet, you could use Storm for that. It would be equally fictional, but much more fitting to the cave-man faction.
Some of the pantheons seem to be set up with the most important gods being the main three, but some of them don't seem to be. And you listed Izanagi twice. Why not use Amaterasu ("good"), Tsuki-Yomi ("neutral"), and Susanoo ("evil") as the major Shinto gods? And the way that the Christian Lucifer gives you access to God's angels (such as Michael) doesn't make sense to me -- shouldn't he have demons?
I'm sorry I can't comment much on the rest of it. I don't really know what criteria are used to list the minor gods with each major god. I'm not meaning to be relentlessly negative all the time, I just generally don't have anything to say about things I don't disagree with.
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Why not make this into a proper poll instead of all people just posting their OS?
It seems there are a lot of different variations, though. Perhaps too many for a poll to list every significant permutation.
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I want to play First Age Noldor first. Sure, they had some serious flaws, but they are still my favorites.
Sorry for the mega-necromancy... at this point, any post to an existing thread is necromancy.
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I am utterly devastated to learn that Finrod Felagund is not available for the Noldor.
OK, actually I'm just pretty disappointed, but I expected that with 3 leaders per civilization, the Noldor would get their three Houses, or at the very least two of them. That seems the most natural fit to me.
At the very least I hope the cut leaders are made into heroes for their factions.
Sorry for the mega-necromancy... at this point, any post to an existing thread is necromancy.
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I would definitely like to see a tutorial scenario designed for folks who want to play the game but have never used an RTS before in their life. Take me, for example: my entire lifetime RTS experience is one game of Warcraft III against the computer AI, assuming Warcraft is actually an RTS and not something else.
What would a complete newbie need to learn? How to manage citizen workers, how to maintain a functional economy, how to manage multiple fronts in a battle without losing track of what's going on and missing something important, how to efficiently advance buildings and units in a timely way instead of a stupid way, how to avoid the most common newbie blunders, etc.
Starting small, with a brand-new city that isn't under attack until after you have established it and learned how to run it, seems like a better way to start than dropping the beginning into the middle of a battle, when they don't know the first thing about farming or economics.
The narrator could even be a legendary city-founder of the civilization in question. I know this strays into the myth end of things instead of actual history (but then, so does the above suggestion for the Trojan War), but it would be neat. For example, you could start by founding Rome with Romulus as your narrator, or founding Athens with Kekrops as your narrator (presumably he'd be a human instead of a snake-guy, to cut down on the mythiness), or founding Carthage with whoever was credited with founding it. If that sounds too mythical, you could use a colony, such as a Greek colony on Sicily, or a Phoenician colony somewhere, whose historical founder is known, and have the founder as the narrator.
You shouldn't feel guilty
, a lot of people want to play as romans ( check 'who you want to play first" thread")I'm far more inclined to play Greeks, Iberians, or Celts first. Where is that thread, anyway? It doesn't turn up in search. Do threads get deleted after a while?
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I was thinking that Augustus Caesar should make buildings cheaper to build since he basically rebuilt the city center and infrastructure. Aeneas/Indiges improving the navy is a good idea. Julius Caesar helping the military in some way makes sense too. Romulus could do something with walls, since building the walls and pomerium (a sort of sacred boundary) was a major and indespensible part of founding of a Roman city. However, if there's only one thing that gods can do to improve the walls, it does make more sense to give that to Janus. If Quirinus is to affect buildings as well, he could make them more difficult to destroy.
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Yeah, those make sense to me.
I want to say that Augustus should do something for your buildings, like make them harder to destroy, or slightly cheaper to build.
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It makes sense to give the Romans fewer myth units, since their army is so tough.
I think that your earlier idea of the giant bee (or maybe a swarm of bees?) would work better for Pomona then Arachne. It's just as fictional and made-up as Arachne is, but bees are associated with fruit and orchards, so it fits a little better.
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I had no idea Aeneas had been renamed.
Augustalis means "of Augustus" or "Augustus's." It is the Latin genitive form, roughly equivalent to adding 's to a possessive noun in English, or of turning the noun "he" into the possessive "his." In the nomitive form (as a proper noun), his name was still Augustus.
I wish I had ideas for more deity-specific Roman myth units, but I don't. But mer-leopards, mer-lions, and so forth could be fun.
Northwest Semites : 2348 BC - 146 AD, dated from the traditional date of the Creation to the fall of CarthageClever!
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Hmm, coming up with myth units for deified emperors seems especially hard.
I'd just call Augustus Augustus Caesar and Aeneas Aeneas, though. They didn't change names when deified.
For deities that the Romans had that the Greeks don't in your set-up, you could consider Saturnus, Mercurius, and Janus. But I agree with you that Hephaistos and Vulcan are different enough to easily include both. Hephaistos is the god of smithcraft and other creative arts, and Vulcan is mostly a god of blowing stuff up and setting things on fire.
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That show was so far beyond inaccurate, but it was often hilarious fun.
Bacchanal usually refers to a festival in honor of Dionysos, I think. I'm trying to think up another name for the wine spirit... Methe (inebriation)? Akratos (overly-strong/unmixed wine)? Lyssa (rabies/madness/frenzy)?
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You're welcome.
But -- and this is important -- will the Fauns be drunk?
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Yeah, the Colossus is a fun idea. Personally, I prefer as much accuracy as possible without compromising game balance, and I think that a horde of drunken satyrs, centaurs, and mainades would be great, but it's entirely a matter of taste. It's not meant as a criticism, just that I don't have a clear idea what precisely you're aiming for and that makes it difficult to give useful feedback.
These websites may be able to help you with the Basque material. I wouldn't assume everything on it is accurate, but at the least it is a good starting point for any future research you decide to do. As for research, there's probably much more written in books or journals than online.
http://www.pantheon.org/areas/mythology/eu...e/articles.html
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Neither is Helios. Besides, Sol Invictus was a major god among the Romans, but other than the Rhodians almost no Greeks worshipped Helios at all. His worship was so rare that worshipping the sun was regarded by some Greeks as a hallmark of "barbarian" religion. Besides, Dionysos was very powerful in myth, as well. Haven't you read Euripides' Bakkhai? Or read about what he did to those pirates who tried to abduct him? He was a very important god in Greek religion.well helios is pretty powerful in mythology: mess with his cows, and youre @#$%ed
id LIKE to keep dionysus, but i found he wasnt as important as some of the others. and besides, he's not even an olympian, really; he just replaces hestia since he's better known, but he's still not an olympian.
Well, you put the most important gods (like Zeus and Poseidon) at the beginning so I figured it would be more consistent to have the most minor of the gods come last. Just because AOM did something doesn't mean its wrong. Presumably they based some of it on real religion and myth. Hephaistos was far less important to Greek religion and myth than Athene.athena was more important, though, being the patron of athens and whatnot.
I never suggested giving Medusa to Hera. Keeping her for Hekate, or moving her to Persephone, makes far more sense. Karkinos (unlike Hydra) was actually sent by Hera, that's why I suggested giving it to Hera.interestingly, your suggestion of giving hera both medusa and karkinos was already done in AOM.--i know persephone is a nature goddess, but she seemed fitting for hades--lamias will probably be a hittite unit
Persephone is both an agriculture (not nature) goddess and an underworld goddess, so it works fine to include the underworld part.
I'm not aware of the Lamias being part of Hittite myth. Are you sure they were invented by Hittites?
Overall, I think you have to decide, are you trying to be as accurate as possible to the history, religion, and myths (allowing for the mixing of different historical periods) or would you rather have more freedom to make it up and not worry about making it resemble anything real? If you want to be accurate, you need to do a lot more research than you have so far.
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Looks good. I think that Dionysos is a better choice than Helios, mainly because he had far, far more worship than Helios. He could focus on agriculture, special buildings, and maybe the economy, or on reducing the effectiveness of debuffs against the Greek units. You can give livestock to him or to Hermes. His myth units could be centaurs (instead of Hermes), satyrs, or mainades (maenads), who are actually a lot scarier than they sound. I'd also switch the order in which the player gets favor from Hephaistos and Athene; I think they should get Athene first.
Some of the myth units don't really fit all that well with the god who provides them, but it's not always easy to find something that fits, since several Greek gods don't have any fantastic creatures associated with them. I'd consider giving Medusa wings and making her fly (which is how she's depicted in ancient Greek art), and maybe giving Karkinos to Hera. Another option for Hera is Argos Panoptes. I'm not sure what he would do, other than being a really good melee unit and almost as large as a Cyclops, but if individual units have different perception levels, he can see very far in every direction thanks to his 100 eyes. Sirens are associated with Demeter and Persephone more than Hamadryads are: they can basically perch somewhere and lure enemy units away from battle and within range of their claws. Persephone could have Medusa, and a different option for Hekate are ghosts or Lamiai: they could sneak into enemy areas in disguise and then ambush them. Apollo could send the drakaina Poine instead of the Lernaean Hydra. She's got the rear half of a snake or dragon, the upper half of a woman, and snakes for hair.
post-0 AD idea: mythology
in Game Modification
Posted · Edited by Aldandil
It is going to be difficult to have the wild animals resemble the myth units, you're right about that. Some species have two or mroe different names that can be used but even then, physically they'll still look the same. Also, I don't know how you'll find cryptid names for all of the animals. It's a sensible concern, I just don't know if you'll be able to get it the way you want using that method.
Gazeka is from New Guinea? That's completely outside the range of the Pleistocene Cro-Magnons, and how can something look like a tapir and a ground sloth at the same time? Those two animals are nothing alike.
A Neas/Ancylotherium would be pretty similar to a ground sloth. For that matter, a Neas/Chilotherium would be similar to a tapir, being semi-aquatic with sharp teeth. Perhaps you could even have three Neades: Lesser Neas (Ancylothere), Water Neas (Chilothere), and Greater Neas (Deinothere), which would cover three different prehistoric animals.
Some other names that could work:
Mammut = mammoth, and not necessarily a woolly mammoth, any species will do (the woolly species would look out of place next to the African dinosaurs and Greek Titans, IMO) or it could even apply to a mastodon such as Anancus
Shelk or Giant Stag = Megaloceros
Giant Unicorn = Elasmotherium
I can't think of a good name to replace Sivathere, but not all of them need to be wildlife.
Just so you know, dire wolves weren't actually any larger than grey wolves -- it's a common misconception, perpetuated by inaccurate depictions. If you want giant wolves, I think Giant Wolf is a fine name, though they might be overly similar to other dog or wolf units. Please tell me the Celts are going to get Red-eared White Hounds of the Wild Hunt as a myth unit? That would be cool.