Genava55

So we have the philologists Winfred P. Lehmann and Stefan Brink, who argue that this word and its later derivatives did not originally mean "village." I shared the excerpt from the dictionary by Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller, which clearly explains that the meaning of “village” came later and that originally it referred to an agricultural estate. But there is also Eilert Ekwall who said the following in his concise Oxford dictionary of English place-names : OE þorp, þrop is a rare word, and its meaning is doubtful. It was certainly used in the sense ‘farm’, possibly in the sense ‘hamlet’. There is no reason to suppose that it meant ‘village’. The places with names containing þrop are as a rule insignificant. The probability is that a þrop was a dependent farm, an outlying dairy-farm belonging to a village or manor. See Introd. pp. xvi f. Native names in þrop very often have a first el. meaning ‘east, west, south’ &c. (ASTROP, EASTRIP, WESTRIP, SOUTHROP &c.). Native names generally have the form þrop, whence THROOP(E), THRUP(P), THROPHILL &c., the second el. of HATHEROP, NEITHROP, SOULDROP, WILLIAMSTRIP &c. But þorp also occurs, as in GESTINGTHORPE Ess, SWANTHORPE Ha. The element is not common in purely English districts, but a fair number of instances occur in Gl, O. In some counties it is unknown, as D, K, Mx. OScand þorp is a common pl. n. element in Scandinavia, especially in Denmark and Sweden. It is comparatively rare in Norway and absent in Iceland. It is very common in the Danelaw, but very rare in the north-western counties, where Norwegians settled. Thorpes are a sign of Danish settlement. ODan thorp means ‘a smaller village, due to colonization from a larger one’. The latter was adelby ‘the mother village’. OSw þorp means ‘a farm, a new settlement’, more rarely ‘a village’, and in later Swedish torp has come to mean ‘croft’. A þorp was a settlement of far less importance than a -by. The original meaning of þorp was ‘newly reclaimed land, new settlement’. It should not be rendered by ‘village’, but rather by ‘farm’. In origin the Danelaw thorps were evidently as a rule outlying, dependent farms belonging to a village. This is indicated partly by the fact that THORPE alone is a very common place-name. A thorp belonged to a mother village and was often simply called ‘the thorp’. It is also indicated by the fact that a great many places with names containing thorp were named from a neighbouring village. Examples are BURNHAM and B~ THORPE, SAXLINGHAM and S~ THORPE Nf, BARKBY and BARKBY THORPE Le. BURNHAM THORPE was clearly a farm or hamlet dependent on Burnham. The first el. is frequently a pers. name, often of Scand origin.

Ok so in this case, it is only this image: You would need to redraw the pattern from the original artifact, the Desborough Mirror

I don't think there is any copyright on those drawings. The source is never mentioned and it has been copied over and over for decades. I know the British Museum authorizes non-commercial use under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. So I think we are good.

The Britons adorned their bodies with either tattoos or body paint; it is highly likely that they covered their faces. The composition and color of these pigments are a matter of debate. They may have been blue, green, or red. The designs applied to the body are not known from historical accounts. I suggest using simple symbols inspired by those found on certain coins. The colors could match the player’s colors

Britons only. Do you need anything to work on it? Well done! If I may make a comment, there must have been Gauls and Germans with long hair but no beards as well.

Well, am I the only one having this opinion about it? It doesn't seem so: https://bosworthtoller.com/31961 þorp, þrop, es; m. Perhaps the idea at first connected with the words is that of an assemblage, cf. the use in Icelandic: Maðr heitir einnhverr ... þorp ef þrír ero, Skáldskaparmál; þyrpast to crowd, throng: þyrping a crowd: later the word may have been used of the assemblage of workers on an estate, and also of the estate on which they worked; all three ideas seem to be implied in one or other of the following glosses - Tuun, þrop, ðrop conpetum, Txts. 53, 557: Wrt. Voc. ii. 15, 7. Compitum i. villa vel þingstów vel þrop, - Þrop, fundus, i. - The idea of an estate belongs to the word in Gothic: Þaurp ni gastaistald, άγρόν oύκ έκτησάμην, - In the end the meaning came to be hamlet, village, in which sense it remained for some time in English, e.g.: Ic Ædgar gife freodom Sce Petres mynstre Medeshamstede of kyng and of biscop, and ealle þa þorpes þe ðærto lin: ðæt is, Æstfeld and Dodesthorp and Ege and Pastun,

Not really, you're just trying to use an appeal to authority. You're simply incapable of thinking for yourself or applying any critical thinking to what you read. At this point, you’re not even trying to present a line of reasoning anymore; you’re just repeating the same appeal to authority over and over. I’m just going to show why blindly following a source without critical thinking is unwise: You started by relying on this dictionary: Indeed, the first source cited for interpreting "thorp" as a village is the Épinal-Erfurt glossary. But the glossary itself doesn't say anything about a village. It compares "thorp" with "conpetum" and "tuun". That's all. So let's see what the same dictionary says about the word "town" which derived from "tuun": https://wehd.com/96/Town_sb.html Remarkably, both definitions of the word "town" draw on the same source to argue that it refers to both an enclosure and a village. Thus, another entry in the Épinal-Erfurt glossary allows us to unambiguously translate the word "tuun" as "enclosure" based on its correspondence with the Latin "Cors," while, in a completely illogical manner, another entry in the same glossary, where there is the correspondence with "thorp" and "conpetum", translates "tuun" as "village" according to this dictionary: To be honest and objective, the interpretation that "thorp" refers to a village in the Épinal-Erfurt glossary is based solely on circular reasoning. The only way to gain a clearer understanding is to examine the word "compitum", since this glossary is specifically designed to establish a correspondence between Latin and Old English. Fortunately, we have a contemporary who explains exactly what this word meant in his time: Isidore of Seville. Here the quote from his Etymologiarum sive Originum: Conpita sunt ubi usus est conventus fieri rusticorum; et dicta conpita quod loca multa in agris eodem conpetant; et quo convenitur a rusticis. Translation: Conpita are the places where farmers usually gather; they are called conpita because many country roads converge there (conpetant) and because that is where the farmers meet. So, once again, it’s a place, a courtyard, or an enclosure. It makes so much more sense with the word "tuun" that I don't understand how you can't see it. If, in the same glossary, the word "tuun" is also translated as "enclosure," it cannot mean anything else in this context. There is another glossary which supports this interpretation of a courtyard: ‘competum .i. uilla, uel þingstow, uel þrop’ (from The Harley Latin-Old English Glossary published by Robert T. Oliphant) Once again competum is translated by 'villa' (farm), 'þingstōw' (place of assembly) and by 'þrop'... And this is what other experts think: "In early glosses þrop is associated with Old English tūn ‘farm, estate’ and Lat villa ‘farm’ and fundus ‘farm, estate’ (also, and more challengingly, with Old English þing-stōw ‘place of assembly’ and Lat competum ‘cross-roads’). For another, it is not as clear to us as it was to Smith that the known place-names in þrop date from the earliest centuries of Anglo-Saxon settlement." (Richard Jones, David N. Parsons and Paul Cullen, 2009) "Subtle differences were also noted in their meanings. OE throp was noted in early documents as glossing terms such as tun, compitum (a cross-roads), fundus (estate) and villa (farm), and in one instance thing-stow (a place of assembly)." (Richard Jones, David N. Parsons and Paul Cullen, 2011) "The word appears in five Anglo-Saxon glossaries, although four of them ultimately derive the relevant item from a single source, which rather reduces the witness-count. The exception appears the most straightforward instance. A list copied in the first half of the eleventh century contains the gloss ‘fundus, þrop’, where fundus is a term defined by Lewis and Short’s Latin Dictionary as ‘a piece of land, a farm, estate’. This clearly sits within the range of senses we might expect for throp/thorp. The other group of glosses seems more challenging. Here throp appears in association with Lat compitum, which primarily means ‘cross-roads’. In one instance it is additionally combined with OE thing-stow ‘meeting-place’. These senses are rather different from what is generally suggested by Germanic cognates and later English evidence, but they have been admitted into the dictionary definitions of throp, have been sought in some place-names and have coloured discussions of the Germanic term’s ultimate etymology." (Richard Jones, David N. Parsons and Paul Cullen, 2011) The current theory regarding the Anglo-Saxon period is that “þrop” referred to an estate acting also as a gathering place for peasants who collectively managed land, and that there was a semantic shift in its meaning to refer first to the entire community and then to a village. Danish colonization likely accelerated this process, as the Danes themselves used this word to refer to the establishment of new subsidiary farms attached to a main village. Again quoting Stefan Brink, a renowned philologist on Norse studies, who said the following in the book The Viking World (2011): "The medieval element torp, however, must be seen in a context of the huge colonisation in northern Europe during the high Middle Ages, within a new ‘feudal’ agrarian system with a ‘manor’ and dependent tenant farms within an estate. In Germany these tenant farms often had the name dorf (< þorp), and the word for such a dependent farm was spread with the new colonising strategy to Scandinavia. Early on, the element torp must have developed into a meaning of secondary farm, a farm detached from a hamlet etc., hence not always denoting a tenant farm within an estate."

@manowar seems good @Vantha @real_tabasco_sauce @wowgetoffyourcellphone what are your opinions?

It is the not really the name of the civ the topic, but the nomenclature used to name the files. For the in-game name, Achaemenid Persians or Persians (Achaemenids) could be used.

That's why it's important to pull our heads out of the sand.

Vannius, Veleda, Maroboduus, Arminius=> yes Segestes is the father in law. Thusnelda is the wife. Cniva is a gothic king. Cunnius and Catti, never heard of them. More context please. Or check the info and the spelling. Maybe consider Ballomar, Ariovistus, Catualda and Gannascus.

What is your solution for the Germans in the case of Empires Besieged as a mod?

I proposed something similar with coalitions: Personnally I would prefer something enabling the possibility to have unique units, techs and buildings through the tribes chosen. Coalitions are how historically the "barbarians" and the small nations were able to defeat massive empires.

I know, I saw it. And it is really a great idea you had. The idea is good. You are pointing out the issue about the Persians, but we could have the same issue with other civs no? Romans and Germans notably.

The only issue with Neapolis is that it is a very Hellenized town. There are some similar situations with the Saka (Eastern Scythians), notably Chirik-Rabat, a fortified town with Chorasmian architecture.

I don't think this is a problem to have various designs, and I believe the proposal of @wowgetoffyourcellphone is justified. We need to have a flexible concept, sometimes we'll want to represent a people or a civilization from a specific period, sometimes a nation, sometimes an empire, and sometimes a dynasty. We just need to be clear about it and explain it well in the civ's design. Edit: And it’s really good to finally start thinking about what comes next. I felt like this 'Empires Besieged' expansion was constantly being put off until tomorrow, and that people were refusing to give it any thought. It’s clear that not thinking about it creates problems for the expansion’s design, and that we really need to lay the groundwork now, despite the lack of leadership.

This is indeed a better example and a good question/remark. Just adding food for thought, the Gallic Wonder based on the Sanctuary of Corent is not clean and fresh: So maybe it is a general issue in how 0 A.D. portrays the ancient civilizations.

This is an absurd comparison and you know it. On one hand, the Colossus of Rhodes fell due to an earthquake, and the Rhodians refused to rebuild it because of an oracle. On the other hand, the overgrowth of a kurgan with grass is a natural process that occurs in all cases if the monument is not maintained several times a year. In your example, the Colossus of Rhodes is completely destroyed. In the case of the kurgan modeled with grass covering it, it is still functional. We are comparing a natural disaster with an ordinary process. Furthermore a process that was difficult to stop. A kurgan is not something similar to a Greek monument. First of all, this stone covering is not found on all kurgans. Multiple kurgans are simply covered with clumps of earth. One should not assume that it was standard practice to cover a kurgan with a stone shell. In fact, this is most common in certain regions. But even when vegetation had overgrown the gravel surface, this was a common occurrence in the Scythian landscape. Most of the kurgan mounds still standing were in this condition. In any case, I’m not opposed to using a gravel surface. I also think it will look better. Once again, I’m criticizing a specific line of reasoning.

I didn't. If you look closely the other mounds are green. That's my point, after a few generations it look like this. I am not against a pebbles/stones covering. I am just saying your reasoning, claiming that the people of one's 'civilization' were necessarily maintaining such structures in the long term, is wrong. Only one of the design is historically inspired.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_A.D._(video_game) "The historical accuracy of game elements has been the highest development priority. Unit and building names are shown in the original language of the civilization they belong to, and they are also translated into the language in which the user is playing the game. There is also a strong focus on attempting to provide high visual accuracy of unit armor, weapons, and buildings."

A kurgan is a tomb. I understand your reasoning, but it's not supported by evidence. It was very common for tombs and burial sites to be looted or damaged a few generations after their construction. These kinds of monuments weren't venerated by the whole of society; it was a form of ancestor worship. It is, in a way, an expression of power. If the ruling clan changed, the monuments associated with the previous clan weren't maintained. I understand the criticisms regarding the aesthetic aspects; they are valid. However, any historical or sociological interpretation must be supported by facts and observations. If we want to add objects and decorations, there has to be a meaning to it.

The first one doesn't seem to be based on real-world examples from the Scythian period. But in your mod, you can do whatever you want. Do you have any suggestions for improving the second one?

Several civilisations had fortresses, notably the diadochi. The Greeks seem to practice the epiteichismos, which was about fortifying key settlements and outposts. In some cases, we can truly speak of fortresses, so much have the sites been modified by the process. However the Romans do not seem to have proper forteresses, with permanent structures, during the Punic Wars. Regarding the Celts, the boundary between fortresses and fortified settlements is rather blurred. Hillforts and oppida sometimes have relatively few civilian structures and seem to have specialized in a military function. The alternative I can imagine would be to have specialised CC. Some CC could be converted in a more military or defensive structure. The issue with the current system of walls and gates is that the IA is not using it really and it is quite a challenging project to improve the IA in this aspect. A single massive defensive building is far easier to handle. The Germanic faction currently lacks historical depth. It's actually an initiative that started as a mod and then spilled over into the game. Many buildings were designed without necessarily having an archaeological or historical basis to rely on.

I entirely agree. Capturing buildings should be difficult but rewarding. And the buildings should be tied to the territory. I find it absurd when someone loses his CC and he destroy every buildings before the capture. A fortress should be also able to create a new territory but smaller than the CC, to have a territorial anchor. True. We don't want a bland AoE clone. The difficulty behind virtual combat is how to make it good with only calculation because the player would not control which unit are getting the hits. People can get frustrated if the damage are distributed evenly and they would get frustrated as well if we give the damages preferentially to specific types of unit. There is also the issue of calculating the damaged of ranged and mounted units. People will complain.