Sundiata

@Lion.Kanzen I made a rudimentary map of Africa, roughly from the 3rd century BC to 1st century BC-ish. It's a bit rough on the edges, forgive me but it will give you a better understanding than those random general maps that just omit everything. The spaces in between are probably occupied by low density hunter gatherers and even "troglodytes" (cave dwellers). There are probably other cultures that deserve mention on this map as well, but I'm not familiar enough with them.

That map you shared is not good with regards to Africa... I'll also remind you to read through this post first: Some further elaboration: There's not much there to reference, to be honest, in terms of "civilization" during the BC period... The Nok culture from Nigeria produced a ton of stunning terracottas, almost enough to derive a unit-roster. But architecture is a relative unknown, for now. Advances are being made, but all the looting really destroyed a lot of sites... The Bafour/Imraguen of the South Western Sahara seem to form a missing link between the Tichitt people and later ethnicities like the Mande people, but there's not really much material to research... I'm still waiting for the MILLION manuscripts of Timbuktu to be translated and analyzed/interpreted. They will surely shed some more light on the ancient history of West-Africa. But that will probably take another generation or so. Iron Age cultures like the Nok were already spreading across West Africa and even the Northern part of Central Africa since the early 1st Millennium BC (perhaps even earlier), but we just barely know anything about them yet. The oldest Iron Age sites in Southern part of Central Africa date to the 4th century AD... Around the equator and south of it, Africa was still populated by ancient Paleolithic African Stone Age hunter gatherers, related to Bushmen of the Kalahari/KhoiSan (South) and Pygmies like the Baka (Cameroon, Congo, Gabon) or the Mbuti from the Ituri rainforest (Congo). From the 1st millennium BC onwards these Palaeolithic Africans were slowly, but entirely replaced, absorbed or exterminated by the Iron working, sedentary agricultural societies in most of Central and Southern Africa, a process referred to as the Bantu expansion. I hate the term Bantu, because it's one of those stupid terms that lumps everything together, referring to everything and nothing at the same time. It has also become a derogatory term, even used by "non-Bantu" Africans... There were also Nilo-Saharan and "Cushitic" (not related to Kushites) speaking pastoralists, in East Africa, but nothing of real interest (just cattle herders). This stuff is only interesting for mini-civs/map-creeps. But their geographical isolation makes it not a priority. Basically, during 0AD's timeframe: Very... @stanislas69, is it possible to split this thread, and move everything from Lion's post onwards to "===[TASK]=== African minifaction buildings", for now?

Yes, I agree 100%! I think it will be a long term project though... But Garamantes would be the ultimate desert faction... The oasis kingdom... Rulers of the sand! Personally I'm very into the idea of developing the Greco-Bactrians and the Scythians, because 1) they're absolutely awesome in their own right, and 2) they would allow for a seamless integration of the Han Chinese and the Xiongnu... Develop 2 faction, get 2 more for "free" Sarmatians would also be flippin' awesome... I'm also very excited about the Thracians, because they have like, the coolest units ever... They're like fantastical Greeks or something... They've got that cool Greco-Barbarian thing going for them... They're very relevant to at least 5 or more other factions already in game. They're not often depicted which adds exotic flavour. They help to "complete" the European side of the game. The only people still missing from the European side would be some Germans/Germanics/German Celts, I dunno what to call them. Perhaps split them into Germanics proper like the Suebi (Marcomanni, Semnones), and La Tène period Celtic Germans, like the people from the Oppida of Manching, Alcimoennis and Heidengraben. Yes, Germanics, and German Celts... That would be noice... Then of course there's the "Arab" factions... Nabataeans and Sabaeans... Mmmmmm... I'm even thinking about the possibilities of Habesha/proto-Aksumites/early Aksumites (Ethiopians). So there's no shortage of possible new factions to develop over the coming years Of course, there's also still plenty of work to do, to improve the already existing factions...

That question is another Pandora's Box... At least we can do the right thing here on Wildfire Games, free from the hyper politicized popular retellings of history.

Hahahaha... I feel you man! Nobody was asking for a Black Achilles. I don't know a single black person that was waiting for this... It's just stupid! Like that other BBC animated series about ancient Romans in Britain. I didn't understand the outcry at first (there were black people in Roman Britain), until I actually saw it and cringed at the sight of armies of black Romans and even black Celts... Who does that?! Black Celts? Really?? Why?! Why not make them Nepalese while you're at it... We want movies about Taharqa, Ezana, Sundiata Keita, Mansa Musa, Osei Tutu, Queen Amina, Nzinga, Alfonso of Kongo, Menelik II, Jaja of Opobo... Movies set on the ancient Swahili coast, the Kingdom Zimbabwe, the Kingdom of Benin, Kanem Bornu Empire, Songhai, Sokoto... Even diaspora stories, like the Zanj Rebellion, the Haitian revolution, Nanny of the Maroons, etc, etc... But nah, here's a black washed Achilles instead, because f#&@ you!

Yeah, popular culture has an obsession with writing important black Africans out of history, and then reinserting blacks into places they don't historically belong. It's very frustrating. For example last year BBC came out with a miniseries called Troy: Fall of a City. They made Achilles a black man... WHY?! They even made Zeus a black man... WHY?! But Memnon, one of the key figures in the war, was completely written out of the story, as usual... Memnon was considered to be almost Achilles' equal in skill, and was loved by Zeus himself! They removed an actual black king from the actual story, and replaced one of the main white protagonists with a black man instead. Why are they doing this??? Aaaargh?!@# It's just deliberately designed to stir controversy... Interestingly, the dating of the Trojan war has been a little uncertain, and the consensus has already shifted a century or so... Since the 3rd century BC at least, the ancients identified the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III, as Memnon (according to Ptolemaic Egyptian priest Manetho, also see Colossi of Memnon). Amenhotep III, a black pharaoh of the 18th Dynast (New Kingdom), ruled only a century or so before the current dating of the Trojan war. There is little basis to confirm Amenhotep III as the mythical Memnon, but it's interesting, to say the least, and there were others called Amenhotep, after him as well, including at least one viceroy of Kush... Also, The Egyptian Empire actually bordered Anatolia during this period... And during the reign of Ramesses II, the treaty of Khadesh was signed, a peace treaty between the Hittites and the Egyptians (around the time of the Trojan war). Ramesses II was succeeded by Merneptah. During the New Kingdom, Kush was part of Egypt and Egyptian armies had large numbers of Kushites serving (often referred to as Nubians in modern writing). Ramesses and Merneptah actually fought of invasions from "sea peoples", and the whole history of the Eastern Mediterranean seems very intertwined... Amenhotep III, and Memnon:

For the Gauls: Alesia Avaricum Bibracte Cenabum Corent Divodurum Genava Gergovia Itius Lutetia Noviodunum Samarobriva Uxellodunum Vesontio I'm sure @Genava55 can provide some good British sites, or add some other Gallic ones. @Nescio & @Anaxandridas ho Skandiates can provide good Spartan and Macedonian ones.

Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of the Iliad, by Rosemary Sutcliff, illustrated by Alan Lee: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Ships-Before-Troy-Story/dp/0711215227 Some more of Alan Lee's work on the Trojan war:

Isn't instancing the holy grail of performance improvements in graphics rendering? Basically anything that is rendered more than 2 or 3 times... Especially for trees, grasses and all other flora, as well as things like rocks, boulders, cliffs, which add a lot of character to maps, but can't be used to their full potential right now because of performance. Even things like farms, and houses, walls (basically any geometry that's rendered more than a few times). I barely know what I'm talking about, but in blender for example, instancing makes the impossible possible. Like rendering a high poly forests on a laptop. The performance improvement is enormous. Can't be understated. I also read this piece about instancing huge numbers of animated meshes (with their own textures) a while ago, making me curious to what extent even units could be instanced? https://forum.unity.com/threads/experiments-with-instancing-and-other-methods-to-render-massive-numbers-of-skinned-meshes.447749/

I think the map looks gorgeous... Nice work @nani! I also think that about half of the outer most ring of water is essentially wasted space that could be better used to recreate the much larger grassy transition between the forrest and the beach, like in your first post, but with more jagged edges like in your second post. It just feels a bit weird to build a town on the beach, and the Iberian starting walls and those mines extending into the sea look and feel a lot like a bug. There would still be more than enough space for large naval battles. Either way, the map looks absolutely lovely

Woooow! You hero! Hahaha... Marvelous... lol

Interesting, I never even thought about that... I have indeed never seen a period depiction of that. Not quite sure that I understand what you're saying here. Google is my friend (not really, but it knows my entire search history so I try to keep on it's good side) I reverse image search almost everything I post (to find the highest quality versions and their original context). I've been obsessively searching for ancient artwork and modern artist's interpretations of historical subjects for a very long time. The algorithms really know what I'm looking for by now... I have modest but pretty good personal library back in Belgium and I have this historian friend that has hundreds of high quality titles as well, + several hundred Osprey titles which I've drooled over more times than I care to admit So I've been primed to a lot of relatively good stuff. I'm aware of the issues with Osprey and other comparable stuff, but I think the problem is more that some people expect a little too much from "pop"-history titles geared at the non-specialists who just want a basic but comprehensive introduction with some pretty pictures to go with). I guess I take it for granted that modern artists' interpretations should always be taken with some caution. It's often just the best we got to give people a quick understanding without having to dive into the more difficult to find and assess primary sources. I do 100% appreciate and love primary sources above all, I'm just not familiar with all of it, so I really appreciate if someone provides them. Nitpick away! Personally, I understand artists taking artistic licenses, but I think they're only really appropriate when there is missing information that needs filling in. Interesting...

@Nescio, Here are a 3 more artworks by Andrei Karaschuk/А Каращук, after googling the Russian name. Pretty nice stuff:

"Carthaginian infantry fighting in a phalanx with Libyan skirmishers ahead of them, 3rd century BC - art by Andrei Karaschuk (А Каращук)" That's about as far as I get when trying to search more info on the painting... Huh??? Some Aspis were covered in a thin sheet of bronze, but I know you know that... Since these guys were recruited from among the wealthiest, and their armor was described as splendorous, the artist made an understandable choice. I'm aware that some would argue for a white shield, because of Plutarch, but the mention of white shields seemed to be a general Carthaginian citizenry thing, not necessarily sacred band. I Agree with the rest, although the term "Berber" is arguably even more ambiguous than "Libyan".

You're very skilled, wow... The statue isn't exactly suitable for the vanilla game because it seems to depict a Norman warrior, which is quite anachronistic. @Genava55's references are the ones to use if you want make a Gallic statue. That having said, perhaps replacing the Kite shield with a more fitting Gallic shield, or removing the shield altogether might be all it takes... Not sure about the helmet. But again, lovely work man! These are my very low poly attempts for the new Gallic sanctuary:

Euhm, wow... Did you make that???

@wackyserious, ooooh, found a beautiful painting of the Carthaginian Sacred Band supported by some Libyan skirmishers (or perhaps even Gaetuli, I'm not sure):

Absolutely. I also think it's unnecessary/strange that military units are in civilian clothing when gathering, but change back to military gear after dropping off the resource, even if they're still gathering. So they go from military to civilian and back every gather cycle.... As long as they're gathering, they should stay in civilian clothing... When they are not gathering they should be in military gear.

And for the readers: "The Carthaginians 6th–2nd Century BC" : ELI201.pdf

Carthaginians recruited Mauretanians (archers), Numidians (cavalry), Libyans (skirmishers) and I believe even some Garamantians. The backbone of the Carthaginian army was apparently made up of Liby-Phoenecians. Basically urban Libyans who have adopted Punic culture and were equipped similarly as Punic troops, with noticeable Hellenic influence. Here's a nice collection of art references of the Carthaginian army, including Punic troops, native troops and mercenaries. I'll start with the illustrations from the Osprey title "The Carthaginians 6th–2nd Century BC". Some have been shared before, but these ones are high quality, and accompanied by the original text: I would argue for a tech that unlocks Romanized Liby-Phoenecians. Otherwise, the depiction of mail on Punic units might be frowned upon. A purely Libyan unit, without any Hellenic or Punic influence could be a nice cheap skirmishing unit (cannon fodder).

@Tallestdavid, this might not be 40k, but it's Warhammer: Seems to be in early stages of development.

@Anaxandridas ho Skandiates I saw you commenting on hellenistic/greek fortifications in the "===[TASK]=== Trees" thread. I thought it more appropriate to reply here. I found these in the Osprey title: "Ancient Greek fortifications 500 - 300 BC": @LordGood, interesting perhaps? Here's the actual Osprey title for those who like to read (includes pictures of ruined fortifications): Osprey ancient-greek-fortifications-500-300-bc.pdf

You should be able to find a few people who have streamed 0AD video's before in the "0AD on Youtube" thread. You might have better luck asking those people directly on youtube because they don't usually have accounts on this forum. MayorceteGaming for example is a relatively high profile youtuber who recently streamed a 0AD MP game and has done a number of videos on 0AD before (he's a fan). Though he's Spanish speaking...

Yeah, Sudan's electoral system hasn't exactly been functional the past 3 decades, so it's hard to tell where it's going... The Defense Minister, Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf seems to be calling the shots for now. They did arrest a significant number of people close to Bashir as well, and the military ordered the release of political prisoners, so something definitely got uprooted. There are some clear parallels to the uprising in Algeria that recently ousted president Bouteflika, as well as the Oromo and popular uprising in Ethiopia that lead to the rise of Abiy Ahmed as the new Prime Minister, and he honestly seems to be working miracles up to now. People are just fed up, you know... "Democracy" might not be working but the least we can expect from our leaders is to not be genocidal maniacs... It's really not that much to ask.