Andrettin

How are DNA studies relevant when we are talking about cultures? People assimilate; when a person of Celtic descent begins speaking a Germanic language and practicing Germanic customs, that person becomes Germanic himself.

Maybe, but regardless of the original meaning of the name, the meaning of the word in English nowadays is what it is. Just because a certain meaning is an earlier one doesn't mean it is better.

"γνησίους Γαλάτας" does not translate to "Germani"; "γνησίους" (the first part, meaning "authentic") does. Furthermore, although the ancient scholars did well for their time, they had much less knowledge of archaeology and linguistics than we do nowadays. And in any case, regardless of the name which is used to describe them, the Germanic and Celtic languages belong to two distinct families, and the Celtic and Germanic cultures are quite distinct in religious customs and etc. as well.

The Latin word "Germanus" means "authentic", "sincere", etc. The word "Germani", therefore, means "[the] authentic (plural noun)", and has nothing necessarily to do with Celts. In any case, regardless of how the Romans understood the meaning of "Germani", the word "Germanic" in English relates to the ethnic groups that speak Germanic languages, and has little to do with Celts. The Celtic languages, as has been attested by linguists with overwhelming evidence, are a language family distinct from the Germanic one (although both have Indo-European roots).

I agree. And also, it makes the game more interesting, since this is one of the few ways it is possible to plausibly introduce non-military personnel as playable in a RTS.

I thought the idea was having a main Germanic faction, with the Alamanni and etc. being sub-factions, in much the same way as the Hellenes and the Athenians/Spartans?

That sounds interesting, but I'm afraid it would harm immersion if killed units "reappeared" (even in such an indirect form), since the player would have seen the units dying, with animations and all. It seems to me that it would be more appropriate for immersion to give certain military units the following ability: when an attack of theirs made an enemy unit's HP reach zero, there would be a % chance that the enemy unit would become a slave unit (its death animation wouldn't play, of course, instead it would change its unit type to that of the slave unit, which would work as you described - it would be like a villager, but better at gathering, and have a finite lifespan or some other disadvantage of the sort).

I tend to agree. A big part of the point of a minifaction, it seems to me, is that other peoples could get representation in-game without needing to have the entire amount of work required for a full faction.

That would be a hypothesis, not a theory - a theory is possible to be proven as false, and this particular classification has not been proved false simply because there is overwhelming linguistic evidence in its favor.

There was a Gothic kingdom in today's Ukraine before that. And more importantly, the language of the Goths is from a distinct Germanic branch (East Germanic), whereas most of the other Germanic groups mentioned spoke a West Germanic language.

Ah ok thanks, I missed that

I'm not sure what you mean? As far as that site is concerned, there's no modern archaeological evidence that confirms that the Britons weren't Celts. The researchers in question seem to find it "very questionable" to classify the Britons as Celts, but nevertheless thought it better than any other alternative, or otherwise they wouldn't have included Britain in their "Celtic World" map.

Very interesting. Nevertheless, that same source also includes most of Britain as part of the "Celtic World", so it seems that although they think it is very questionable, it is the best hypothesis avaliable.

I'm not sure stylistically it would work well, either. Furthermore, while there is a reason to, say, translate "Spearman" into each civilization's language, to make it more unique, there is no need to that to each civilization's name, since that is already unique anyway.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the Saxons being an East Germanic tribe, but linguistically their speech is categorized as being West Germanic (while Old Norse is North Germanic and Gothic is East Germanic).

Great stuff, Lion.Kanzen! Muy interessante!

You mean having those like the Hellenes have Athenian and etc. faction profiles? Sounds pretty good.

From the description of the Seaxman unit of the Civilization V Fall of Rome scenario:

Maybe a good idea would be to have one or a few Germanic tribes as mini-factions for Empires Ascendant, and then use those as a base for a full-fledged Germanic faction in the expansion?

One idea is to, instead of having a settlement, having specific buildings which indicate what that mini-civilization is best at (and besides, having a settlement as a building is a tad strange). For instance, if a mini-civilization is renowned for its woodcrafting and archery, then its specific building could be an archery range or lumber mill, which would allow recruiting their archers and researching their arrow upgrades. This specific building could either be capturable or (as I would rather suggest) have it be usable by a player if he has units close to the building (perhaps this could be limited to special units, such as heroes). This would work more or less like neutral buildings (i.e. Goblin Laboratory) did in Warcraft III.

I think Total War style campaigns don't go very well with a RTS: Total War battles are much more limited in scope (at most a single city is represented) being Real-Time Tactics, while RTS missions include multiple towns, and their time span is greater, too. Anyhow, that's my opinion

I would love to see a Germanic faction. I will also be eagerly awaiting for the expansion

I would like to suggest anglicizing some names (but not translating them), in order to make them easier to read. In particular, it seems to me that it would be better if the diacritic/accent marks were removed. For instance: naming the Greek Hoplite "Hoplites Hellenikos". I only know the norms of anglicization from old Scandinavian languages, but if anyone knows the norms of anglicization of Greek and etc. names, that would be even better than just removing the accent marks.

I was thinking more something along the line of a series of historical scenarios (like the campaigns in AoE), rather than a campaign map like that. I have found some historical battle scenarios in the maps which are more along the lines of what I'm looking for. Thanks for the help!

Thanks for the speedy answer!