Sundiata

@av93, actually you're right, Tuareg are matrilineal and not matriarchal, my bad... Although they are sometimes referred to as matriarchal because of the position, and great freedoms enjoyed by women in traditional Tuareg society, much more so than in most other Islamic societies today. I do believe that there were a few matriarchal societies though, not an expert here. I hope you understand why I made the mistake with regard to the Tuareg: Women were allowed to have many sexual partners before marriage Women were allowed to own property including tents and animals (the most valuable property to Tuaregs) Women were allowed to divorce (even throwing divorce parties) and kept most of the stuff through some sort of traditional prenuptial agreement Women were traditionally consulted in politics (although men did indeed do most of the talking) Women could become ruling queens... Men were almost subservient in Tuareg society, as in, I've seen documentaries were for example the woman would tell the man "make me some tea", upon which the man would promptly get up to make his wife some tea. Not saying that's proof of matriarchalism, but if you see it, you'll understand... The women snaps her fingers, man complies. Pretty interesting... In modern times the traditional Tuareg way of life is giving way to sedentary lifestyles and arabization, eroding the traditional position and role of women. Christianization and Islamization have actually eroded the position of women in many African societies (including my own). In Akan society (matrilineal) Queen Mothers are second in rank only to the King himself, and these women are king-makers. The largest rebellion against British rule in Ashanti for example was famously led by Yaa Asantewaa, Queen Mother of Ejisu. It's not uncommon in Africa... This is interesting: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3131511/Sex-Sahara-Striking-photographs-mysterious-Islamic-tribe-women-embrace-sexual-freedoms-dictate-gets-divorce-don-t-wear-veil-men-want-beautiful-faces.html This is so sweet, I need this in my life...: Wait, what am I talking about, I have 0 A.D., silly me...

@Alexandermb

Just laying the groundwork for a hypothetical Garamantian faction. The research poses serious challenges, so anytime we find something interesting or relevant about them, we can post it here, in preparation for a bigger research push. They were a southern Berber Kingdom existing from 500 BC to 700 AD, centered on the modern day Fezzan (Southern Libya), stretching as far south as Niger and Chad. Bordered the Carthaginians in the north and interacted with the periphery of Egypt and Sudan. They were related to the Mauretanians and Numidians to the North West in the Maghreb. There is a certain degree of Mediterranean influence and they fought wars with the Romans. They were a literate people using the Tifinagh script, derived from Punic, which is in turn derived from the Phoenician script. This script is still used across the Sahara today. During our timeframe, they were the kings of the Sahara, building fortified towns (oasis cities) and managing underground water reserves (aquifers) using a massive network of subterranean channels creating lush farmlands... They turned parts of the Sahara green for over a thousand years (until the fossil water reserves were depleted) and the population collapsed, becoming increasingly nomadic and giving rise to the modern Tuareg people. The challenges relating to this faction are the total lack of a navy (they live in the middle of the desert) and a low diversity in units which aren't richly studied. They'd be something in between the ancient Libyans mentioned and depicted in Ancient Egypt and the later Tuareg of the Sahara and the Sahel. Off the top of my head, units would something along the line of: Libyan archers Libyan swordsmen Garamantian spearmen Garamantian javelin men Garamantian Javelin cavalry One man Garamantian chariots (1 or 2 horses), basically just a small platform on wheels Camels probably weren't introduced to the Western Sahara on a noticeable scale until the A.D. period. The degree of Hellenistic influence on the Garamantian military is entirely unknown to me right now. Garamantians are basically the descendants of light-skinned Libyans of Afro-Asiatic ancestry, moving south and mixing with local Nilo Saharan Africans. Not unlike Kushites, but Garamantes have a much more pronounced Asiatic (Middle Eastern) element. Ancient Libyans (Archaic), 4 guys on the left (when they still inhabited the North African coastline, before moving south): During our timeframe (top 3 guys): Modern descendants in the Fezzan: Tuareg, a Garamantian legacy, the southern Berbers: Tin Hanan, mother of the Tuareg, a 4th century ruling Queen (Tuareg were/are matriarchal!): Fewet, a Garamantian site (BC period): https://www.insegnadelgiglio.it/prodotto/life-and-death/ Architecture type is typically Saharan... Mudbrick with occasional use of stone:

Especially when they're playing with Kush Uhu... Dude is racking up views... 75.000 and counting! More than all the other videos combined... Amazing publicity! The Spanish speaking community is strong... Oh, I also like your facebook page Nice and active...

So, these (Libyan) people are related to the Libyan dynasties that ruled Egypt before being pushed out by the Kushites. To be more precise, the 22nd and 23rd Dynasties, ruling from the Delta, before being subjugated by King Piye of the Kushite 25th Dynasty. They had interplay with the Kushites! How cool Interesting write up: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?735996-The-Libyan-Kingdom-of-the-Garamantians&styleid=41 In our timeframe they were long gone from Egypt though... As rulers at least. @Lion.Kanzen, where did you get this image from?? Looking at the excavation results, that's actually Garama (Germa/Jerma), their capital! Very nice stuff. More accurate than I first assumed...: Other important sites: This is also pretty cool and quite relevant: "Anyway, when looking for some Garamantian architecture I came across this place. It's a Garamantian compound called Fewet. From what I've read it's was radiocarbon dated to the 2nd-1st centuries BC and is adjacent to a necropolis.", from Historum.com For emblem something like this? Although it might be an archaic style... I'm not sure.

@Lion.Kanzen You're going to have to be a little more specific here... Do you mean a specific faction like Garamantes, or another hypothetical faction (that no one's working on yet)?

I thought this emblem was made by myself, Lion.kanzen and stanislas69? Was it changed?

"1. Churches of Hagia Sophia (from right to left): church of Theodosius II, church of Justinian I as in 537 and after the new dome in 562."

Xšayaṛša is the original Old Persian form of Xerxes, written with appropriate diacritics, for those of you who can't read cuneiform (peasants... )

Yes, I made my suggestion on the first page (Xerxes) If you want to go the puritanical way, Xšayaṛša is pretty cool too...

Garamantes fortifications: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/111111-sahara-libya-lost-civilization-science-satellites/ Remains of Garama, the capital of the Garamantes: Saharan chariot:

More like 300.000 BC The Mursi are a Nilo-Saharan people, who share similarities with the Nuba, who can be recruited as mercenaries when playing the Kushites. You could just build a bunch of Nuba mercenary camps (round huts, thatched roof) and pretend that they are Mursi I guess the Blemmyes and the Noba could have their own spin off, but they really wouldn't be all that spectacular during our timeframe (500 BC - 1AD). Having a culture like the Hamer as an independent playable civ would be impossible to balance. They'd have like 3 buildable structures (big hut, medium hut, small hut) and would only field primitive spearmen, clubmen and archers. Imagine them facing Greek Hoplites or Roman Legionaries, or an army from any civ in-game actually. It would be a slaughterhouse... They're also not historically connected to any other civilization in-game except for Kushites. You know Kushites are in the newest release right? The Nok culture is probably right up your alley. Right time-frame. "Typically African" (round huts are assumed), while also demonstrating a certain level of sophistication. Known for their beautiful teracottas (which can provide references for a number of units). An Iron Age people (some of the earliest in West Africa). They also fielded cavalry. We just know spectacularly little about them, know nothing of their language and they are far removed from everybody else in-game, geographically speaking. Garamantes, a Southern Berber people (basically "proto"-Tuareg) are really interesting and quite relevant (controlled trans-Saharan trade routes, and had Roman and Carthaginian interaction), and they could be done architecture wise. Units would be very challenging though, and they have no navy whatsoever (they lived in the middle of the Sahara). They didn't live in huts though, but mudbrick structures (sometimes several stories high)... And even some cut stone structures (temples). They had fortifications and an urban elite. Fielded chariots... Had a written script, "Tifinagh", derived from Phoenician. There's some nice beginning reference posts on them in this thread: The Numidians, a northern Berber people are equally interesting, but shorter lived and heavily influenced by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans and Greeks. I would argue that Thracians and Scythians are a little more important for now, but Garamantes certainly have my vote for a possible future civ.

Wow... This is insane! And somebody actually built Stonehenge on top of Jebel Barkal! Loooool! 0AD is gold!

Obviously the point is that the content would be used... A lot more than if it were a mod, actually more appropriately a relevant civilization pack that might as well be added. I imagine mod.io to be used for more comprehensive mods like Hyrule, or pro-balance mods, or testing-new-features mods on a larger scale. I have no problem whatsoever with it being published to mod.io, as an introduction/testing, but if it's found to be of good quality/liked, why not add a Pre-Columbian civ-pack as a built in extra? Separate from the other civs for obvious reasons. Of course not... You don't see the irony? The logo of the game developer is Chinese. We have a complete and historical Chinese civ lying on the shelf. Yet, Chinese names won't be accepted for the next release ... because there's no Chinese in the standard game... It's like, AAAARGH?!?!

Also, why is the Wildfire Games logo the Chinese character for "fire"? How could there be any resistance to including the Chinese as a playable civilization when the actual logo of Wildfire Games is CHINESE??? That logo features in like, every official promotional video...

@Nescio, thanks for clarifying. I do understand what you mean, I'm just saying it simply doesn't apply to some of the civs in our game, like the Persians, Mauryas (see how I spelled it correctly this time ), Kushites, Egyptians (under Ptolemaic dynasty Egyptian was still the most widely spoken) and Chinese. And our lack of written records from other civilizations doesn't preclude a relevant name associated with them either. For example if we'd go for an Oriental inclusion: "Xiongnu"... Or we could go with "Xiyu" Han Chinese for "Western Regions", an area fought over with the Xiongnu and paramount for control over the silk-road, connecting everything in the Eurasian sphere together). Oh, that's not what I meant. I meant that they can be included as a standalone expansion: click a button on the home-screen and it goes to Terra Magna with the option to play with those civs (not with the other civs). It would just be cool if it was included by default. Separate, but part of the main game/download. Sorry for going off topic.. But the game portrays more than Western civilizations. I agree that the Ptolemaic building set is probably our least historical and definitely needs Hellenistic infusion (weren't lorgdoods' updated house-models committed?). That having said, for the most part Egypt remained Egyptian, and outside of the main Greek centers of Alexandria, Naukratis and Ptolemais Hermiou, things would have still looked decidedly Egyptian, very similar to the New Kingdom (not Greek). And the in-game models definitely don't look like New-Kingdom houses either (they're fantasy, I believe inspired by Age of Mythology). "it is difficult to find many historically significant events or people in history that did not come from Greek words", There's a lot of Greek stuff, sure, but there's a lot of non-Greek stuff as well. Persians, Egyptians/Nile Valley, Indians and Chinese all have extensive written records... Stuff that people just barely mention because they keep running circles in the Mediterranean. I don't see why we should continue that trend. 16 out of 24 is just a little... Much...

I think your sentence was pretty straightforward... Not that I don't know you know these things, there just wasn't any real nuance in that statement or the argument it was supporting, namely that non-Greek or non-Roman names may be an "inferior" choice, or that a name may not be chosen because its Greek. That's the opposite what's happening. Greek and Roman names have been chosen in the past, because they were Greek and Roman (and therefore more widely known). Otherwise you wouldn't have 15 out of 23 Greek and Roman names. And now you're arguing to make it 16 out 24. It just furthers this self-enforcing illusion that there wasn't much going on outside of the Greco-Roman world. Yes... But that doesn't have any bearing on its impact on popular culture or what people think of the history behind Sparta and the Persians. It may be fantasy but its obviously based on (a distortion of) historical events. Yes, people should read more for themselves, but they just don't, which turns these popular distortions into popular reality. With "violates realism", do you mean anachronism in civilizations from an extended timeframe?

That's actually not a relevant argument, is overly subjective and really isn't true when taking Persians, Egyptians, Kushites, Mauryans (and Chinese) into account... Why do you like to trigger me like that? lol! I don't believe in reinforcing historical biases. Greek and Roman history is super interesting, but so is a lot of other stuff that hardly anybody has ever heard of, for no other reason than Hollywood not making movies about it and high-school history curriculums still being stuck in 20th century narratives. 0AD offers amazing educational opportunities, illustrated by the addition of civs like the Kushites, Mauryans, Seleucids and Ptolemies. Civilizations that most people have never even heard of. The Xiongnu offer the same educational advantage, and the legacy of Xerxes and the Achaemenids has been thoroughly dragged through the mud by that unspeakable movie (who's name we shall not mention) which has had an incredible impact on popular culture. We can help in "righting those wrongs" with our historical roster, and more attention to the relevance of the most powerful civilizations never mentioned. We should be trend-setters, not followers. True. More importantly, stone-age warriors vs iron-age antiquity... would euhm, turn out ugly... Impossible to balance. They have no horses... Llama cavalry would be hilarious, but unhistorical... Quinquireme vs dugout canoes? If we use a more flexible timeframe for the pre-Colombian civs (600 BC - 600 AD, why not, it's a separate game anyway), we could have a really cool collection of factions and add it as a "built in mod", like those AoE-expansions (except it actually comes pre-packed with the game, with an integrated button on the homescreen). add Zapotecs, together with Maya's, Olmecs, Moche and Teotihuacan... Would be absolutely delicious!

This was me waiting for alpha 23: This is me right now: Thank you everybody! Amazing work!

I'd like to stress that the "Ptolemaic" name Naukratis (alpha 14) is obviously not Egyptian, but Greek. The Egyptian name was Piemro. The "Ptolemaic" name Timosthenes [of Rhodes] (alpha 20) is obviosly also Greek and not Egyptian either... [Even the Celtic Loucetios sounds Hellenized...] This would mean that out of 23 alphas so far, we already have 10 Greek names... We have 13 civilizations in game, and 10 out of 23 alphas have been given Greek names... In addition to that we have 5 Latin (Roman) names... That makes at least 15 Greco-Roman names out of 23 alphas. But so far we have 6 Greek suggestions in this thread... I get it, Greeks were cool, but seriously... What the fudge... How about finally merging Rise of the East with the main game and naming alpha 23 "Xiongnu"?

Yeah, if you're more of a "political" player it gives you grey hair to see units start a cycle of all out war and destruction all on their own... Makes me want to delete units just to punish them for their insolence!

Xenophon is cool and interesting from an educational perspective, but we already have a bunch of Greek stuff... Xerxes is the more obvious choice (which isn't necessarily bad), and we haven't had a Persian name for an alpha since alpha 8 (2011)... Maybe add some special attention to the Persians the upcoming release? So yeah, my vote is on the dude that ordered the lashing of the Hellespont

@Lion.Kanzen OMG, I laughed so hard anytime he tried pronouncing anything... That was hilarious! Really nice introduction video though, and the man has a good voice and accent for narration. @Skhorn check this guy out showcasing Napata around min 7.29

There would still be space to arrange a number of buttons around the minimap. It could be done in any number of ways without totally obscuring that corner. For example: I'm not saying this is the best looking option, but more talented people can figure out the aesthetics. Just wanted to illustrate a map in the lower left corner that gives you much less of a sense of having a huge blind spot there (whilst increasing the map in size at the same time).

@Shiyn like others, I like your attempts at redesigning the gui, keep at it, I would say. A historically relevant themed gui for each civ would be insanely cool, and adds a lot to immersion and aesthetic civ-differentiation, but is probably a lot of work. One of the things I actually like about Empire Apart is that the circular map doesn't feel heavy or obstructive, because its corners are transparent. An "independent" map in the lower left corner would be my personal preference. One of the annoying things (possibly the only annoyance) about a map in the lower left corner is that you often can't see enemy units approaching from that corner. With these transparent sides that wouldn't be an issue... You can also increase the map size somewhat, because its less obstructive, increasing functionality. Being able to click a button to expand the map to see a far more detailed/realistic map version would also be very very cool, but I guess that's not so simple... That epic Mauryan fortress is pretty cool, by the way...