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Rodmar

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Rodmar last won the day on February 15 2014

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  1. I believe this site could interest some of you: http://earlyridinggroup.org/research_periodriding_romans.html
  2. For those who don't know and despair, Catalan is more close to latin than Castillan (and thus, more readable by a French-reading and Italian-reading people). It is still spoken in all the western Iberian Mediterranean arc and the isles (from Alacant to extreme southern France and Baleares): more than 10 million people speak Catalan. It is cousin to another Romane language that was the vernacular in France's southern third and a dozen vales in the Italian Alps. Causes are the strong and early Roman influence in the area, a much lesser penetration and integration of Germanic upper classes from the north (and not before 13th century), some political unity from 9th to 13th century, and a temporary rule by the Catalan kingdom. More than 15 million people live there, but by now, it's more like a cultural identity than a real living language; whereas circa 12 million people were still speaking it before WW1, less than 3 millions currently are. http://fr.academic.ru/dic.nsf/frwiki/1254062 http://fr.academic.ru/pictures/frwiki/83/Sumien.jpg http://fr.academic.ru/pictures/frwiki/83/Sumien_supradialectal.jpg
  3. Yes, it's very interesting, and on the first page I soon as I read "chariot warrior" I was already thinking about the Meso-Americans depicting never seen Spanish horsemen as "centaurs". But the author won't meet my dream about a possible allegoric origin of the "giant" description for Goliath, and only explains how his armament is fully credible in the Near East context of the time (because the Philistines were not Sea People anymore). To exploit: Armor and weapon descriptions for charioteers and others.Philistine heavy chariot manned by *three* crews.
  4. Thanks to Megamania, the link for the Battle of Halzhorn leads to another fictional documentary in German : About last Werkingetorix's battles you can hear some modern archaeologists.
  5. It could be AoM with all the HiRes fan artwork? 3D corn fields, painted egyptian buildings, particle effects?
  6. I stumbled on 2006 National Geographic 49' documentary (and fiction), both in French and then the original version in English, but I found it was _sold_ on Amazon... so I won't provide any link, just Ggle "Youtube lost cities bible" It's a recap about the ancient and recent delves in the SE Dead Sea plain. It also presents an explanation about what may have occurred in this region, several centuries before those events were recorded in a writing. In short, they discovered two cities quite near to each other, both being burned to ash, one of them showing evidences of battle at a gate, and the other one an earthquake strike. So far, they are the only two cities found in the area where the two well known biblical towns could have laid (SE Valley on Dead Sea's shore). They also speculate about an earthquake at Jericho and confirm the fact that the invaders did not stole the grain, as it is written in the Bible (the Jericho parenthesis is to explain that such towns build on a rift had no chance to escape one or two earthquakes a century). Another parenthesis is to show that such cities build a top gas and tar pockets could experience sudden and impressive FAE-like explosions and/or burning solid rain from a nearby explosion, like with volcanic burning ashes. In this time, a few incandescent "bombs" would ravage a whole city with all those thatch roofs and brick walls. As it's certainly not a mere city fire that would prevent humans to re-settle a ravaged site, they postulate that what could explain why those sites were abandoned all of a sudden, is the striking vision of a burning tar fire/geyser, and the huge, lasting dark smoke cloud that would form (obscuring vision for days, leaving ashes everywhere...).
  7. Did you mind those maps ? ("mine" is a few messages past this one)
  8. I'd just want to give you here a link to an old Indian martial art. I think it could be used as a base to devise an Indian unit, in either Empire Besieged or 1000 A.D. This thread could be then used to discuss the faction. Beware, as it could be a-historical (the Gupta being a northern empire). This is based on the mythological origin of all the far-eastern martial arts, as being related in Wikipaedia. An Indian monk, Bodhidharma, came to the Shaolin temple in China by the turn of the 6th century A.D. He eventually developed a spiritual-martial art derived from a pre-existing Indian martial art (so it is valid for the 5th century and should be for some centuries before as well), his father being of the warrior cast. This martial art, Kalarippayatt(u), derived itself from three main influences/cultures: the old Dravidian (relation to nature and animism)the Buddhism (pacifism and energetic body)the new Aryan (art/theory/holistic of the military supremacy)Masters at arms (fencing masters?) (gurus) were doctors too and taught how to kill and how to heal. In this old time, 14 weapons had to be taught but mastering one could take many years of course (at least: staff, hand, sword, knife, spear, flail, shield). On the video links in English below, they tell about the history and the goals of this martial art. So, the idea would be to have either a costly warrior-healer-leader (possibly with minor healing capacities), or a cheaper champion with some regeneration over time, both dealing multiple mêlée damage type (indeed, all the 3 damage types). Really. Watch at the videos. I don't know whether they were armored or not, but surely, they could be the alter-ego of non mounted knights. Nowadays, this art is still taught by dynasties of masters at arms in the Kerala state in the SW. THe number of weapons taught has decreased with time. Here in English:
  9. I think they knew at least the "Wall of shields", to form a tight line to impress the enemy, and protect against cavalry and enemy self wall of shields, because a lone average warrior caught by this kind of line would be dead: it's a 1vs3. It would be nice not only to have various formation types but also various formation "durabilities". For the Celts certainly could hold the line until first contact but then you would tell the difference between them and more disciplined cultures. It should be the same for mercenaries: they should stick to their original culture's habits, not their master's, and as such being employed in full knowledge of that fact. This discrepancy could even make for the lack of a morale system, so true is that being and keeping in a formation is an advantage (defensive or offensive).
  10. "Saxons and Vikings on the battlefield..." how hard it is to see any difference between them, indeed! Thanks for the flickr link. Some nice eastern armors. Is this in Hungary? Also, what is Baranta? This place's name or as I found on Wiki, a martial art or criminal (raiding) activity?
  11. For a Theban faction, you should have Epaminondas as a hero, and the Sacred Batallion (ἱερὸς λόχος / hiéros lokhos) as a champion unit. Don't forget they got hegemony for nearly two decades in the 4th century, roughly between the Spartan rule and the third Sacred War (and the submission to Philip of Macedonia).
  12. But didn't a group of warriors move in straight direction when ordered? Very locally, a man would avoid an obstacle, but a troop in its whole would go through forest, bushes and other difficult terrain (they wouldn't run a mile in the opposite direction without being ordered so, or without facing an obvious impracticable terrain to cross). I feel like we are here at the boundary between boring, non useful, artificial micro-managing, and the reality of tactical orders, the spice of this game, aren't we? So, would it be possible not to include all the possible local terrain variety in the pathfinding computing, but have an additional layer map (I don't recall how Gimp call that kind of layer) that would only grossly depict the terrain with a big "brush" and maybe only three "colors" : fast, medium, slow, non passable. This map would be the one used to compute the general path, the direction, but the real speed and the rendering would be computed using the real detailed terrain map.
  13. In short, the Ptolemaic army consisted of military colonists (sons of the Alexander veterans), Greek citizen under military conscription laws, and Greek mercenaries (Greek in the from Macedon to Anatolia meaning).
  14. This guy's videos are interesting in the sense that he questions established ideas. But he answers to himself in the second video: spears overarm are more practical in mêlée, when the shields come in contact, because the reach is shorter. In both videos he never tells about hoplitic formation. He only says that heroes on pottery are more than often depicted with spears overarm. So, either you dismiss the commune idea about hoplitic formation (and the famous shield bashing breaking bones, etc., as he does in another video), and you figure duel fights as if heroes (a bit like in some modern movies). Or, you consider a spear overarm, at least at the moment of the first contact between formations, when the vulnerable spots are the head, the neck, and the guy behind through the non overlapping superior spot (the inferior spot was often hidden with cloth), a fighting posture which could change for a underarm one when the push is over and the slaughter (and fleeing) begins and the fighters are in a less crowded situation. To conclude, we could keep the overarm technique when under formation, and show more variation when outside a formation. After all, with the sword too there are several duel starting position ("En garde!").
  15. I think you are too harsh. Older times, older graphics, older engine, older AI, older hardware. However yes, AOE units did suck, but maybe not for the same reason for me. AoE was a fail the moment I realized all the unit sprites were the same. It was a total immersion breaking. A shame (how would have it cost to design a patch to correct the visual offense?). No way I could play the Yamato faction with its Roman-like swordsmen, for instance. In fact, I completed the well written and appealing campaigns, and then went with another game. I'm a poor chess player, anyways. As a result, I skipped all the AoE serie and AoM Gold reconciled me with MS (visually speaking).
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