Genava55

@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.

It doesn't seem correct. The earliest account is in the Épinal-Erfurt glossary. Which is generally dated to the end of the seventh century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Épinal-Erfurt_glossary "From the foregoing, it should be clear that Épinal-Erfurt Glossary was compiled in the last quarter of the seventh century, likely at St. Peter and Paul’s Abbey (later St. Augustine’s Abbey) in Canterbury, where the school of Theodore and Hadrian was established." - Herren & Sauer In Épinal-Erfurt glossary the mention I am referring to is the following: ‘conpetum, tuun uel ðrop’ So in this glossary: Compitum = Tūn = Throp. The three terms are equivalents. The Latin compitum was generally used to designate a cross-road during the Roman period, but Isidore of Seville explained that in his day, it referred to a place where people from the countryside gathered. And tūn/tuun at this time still meant enclosure, farmland or yard: the Laws of Æthelberht (L. Ethb. 17) show that "running into a man's tún" (breaking into his yard) was a punishable offense. At the best, it was used for estate. In this case tūn would have the same meaning that the Gothic thaurp. The meaning of throp in the Épinal-Erfurt is obviously not of village. So in the end, the earliest account for throp in Old English doesn't seem to designate a village but a gathering place.

Well if it was an innovation from the Gothic language, why the meaning as a farm or an estate is observed in other Germanic languages? It is the case in Old High German with the word Dorf, which referred to both a farm and a village, furthermore it appears that early glossaries translated it primarily as 'farm' or 'estate' rather than 'village'. It is also seen in Norse languages as well. It is not like þorp meant only 'village' or 'hamlet', it was applied to a farm and to an estate as well. And in Old Swedish, it seems to have retained only its meaning as a farm and not its meaning as a village, see again: So again, not an innovation peculiar to Gothic. There is a body of evidence suggesting that the word came to be used to refer to a village over time. As you can see, I have no problem using another Germanic language. As I said, there are also elements in the Nordic languages that support my criticism of your viewpoint. It is clear that the old Swedish þorp has retained its original character as a single farm. I have shown you the evidence. But I’d like to quote an expert in the field to show that my point of view isn’t some oddity that only I share. Stefan Brink, a renowned philologist on Norse studies, 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." Once again, I feel like I’m the only one taking into account the evolution of Germanic society, which underwent profound changes as a result of the great migrations. The Germanic peoples inherited urbanized territories and institutions that were foreign to their customs; century after century, they had to adapt to their new reality. Stefan Brink emphasizes once again that significant shifts took place that altered the meanings of various words. The Deutsches Ortsnamenbuch and the other works dedicated to the study of place-names demonstrated the same. These semantic shifts were related to important changes in laws and in institutions. The naming of the settlements followed different periods of naming, with clear preference from a period to the other. These different naming dynamics are a reflection of the changes in the meaning of words. The entry from Cleasby & Vigfusson Old Norse dictionary (1874) you are referring to says exactly what I said, in Old Norse the meaning as 'farmland' or 'estate' remained. Once again, it is not an innovation from Gothic. And if þurpą is mentioned only once in the entire Gothic bible, this shows that it wasn't a term that was used very often by ancient Germans. It appears only in an agricultural context, referring to the ownership of a farmland. It would be good to be consistent throughout your argument. You went on at length over several paragraphs to explain that the Germanic peoples lived in scattered dwellings surrounded by fields that separated them, only to now argue that the term þurpą refers to settlements where houses are clustered together and built side by side without their own enclosure. You initially assumed that þurpą referred to the scattered dwellings of the Germanic peoples; are you still able to defend that view by arguing that þurpą refers to a cluster of closely spaced buildings? I am referring to this message you posted:

The issue with building a system revolving on different archer types, is that for balancing, it would be necessary to give it to most civs. No matter what historical justifications one might find. Personally, I feel like the current system, with archers, slingers, and javelineers, isn't being used to its full potential.

I think there is a misconception here. Country (or countryside) doesn't equate to farmlands. The semantic flexibility of the Greek ἀγρός (agros) hinges on the shift from a functional unit to a geographical zone. The meaning diverges based on the narrative focus: it either refers to "farmlands" as a collection of tangible assets and wealth (emphasizing what a person owns), or it refers to the "countryside" as a rural region (emphasizing where a person is, which is often the case in the New Testament). This distinction is most visible when the singular is used to describe the "open country" surrounding a settlement; in these instances, the word ceases to be about farming specifically and instead serves as a spatial contrast to the urban center. Essentially, the word transitions from a private asset (singular field/plural estates) to a public landscape (the rural surroundings). See: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=a)gro/s In the Gothic Bible, there are several references to fields, contexts that unambiguously refer to fields in an agricultural sense, whether in the plural or singular. For example, in Matthew 6:28: "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin." In this passage, the Gothic Bible uses haiþjos, the singular genitive of haiþi. It is the ancestor of the English heath and heathen. https://www.wulfila.be/gothic/browse/text/01/06/28.html#S1097 Therefore, I insist, weihs designates either a village or the country in its geographical sense. Not farmlands. If weihs was translating the word 'farmland' or 'field', it would have been used at least once in that sense. There are about ten instances where the Bible unambiguously mentions one or more fields. Similarly, that's why current translations of the Bible distinguish between country and fields.

I don’t see any relevance in this line of argument. Proto‑Indo‑European dates back to the Neolithic; its origin is probably around 4000 BC, which means it is even further removed from Proto‑Germanic than Proto‑Germanic is from our modern languages. In this situation, we’re comparing things that simply can’t be compared anymore. The purpose of this discussion is to try to understand what vocabulary speakers of Proto‑Germanic might have used to refer to their settlements. The Cimbri migrations took place around 100 BC. I don’t see the point of going back that much further. And if you want to talk about the reconstructed PIE form *ḱóymos, it did indeed yield *haimaz in Proto‑Germanic, but it also produced κώμη (kōmē) in Ancient Greek and káimas in Lithuanian, both of which can be used to refer to a village. Kōmē is precisely the form chosen to designate the first phase (village) for Greek civilizations in the game… So it’s a bit inconsistent to criticize that choice on the grounds that the older PIE form doesn’t necessarily refer to a settlement. That’s really stretching the argument, and I don’t see the point of it. In your message, you criticize me several times for relying on place names that date from a few centuries after the Cimbri period, but in the end, you are constructing an argument based on reconstructions of a language that predates Proto-Germanic by several millennia. The fact that a word’s etymology can have multiple meanings does not mean that the word itself is ambiguous. In the case of the Proto-Germanic word *haimaz, it is clear that the meaning as "village" has been preserved in several Germanic languages. We saw it is the case in Gothic, but it is also the case in Old English with hām, in Old Saxon with hēm and in Old Franconian with the word haim which gave the French "hameau" (hamlet). This is also visible in German place-names and it is an undisputed view that Heim was also used for collective dwellings. See the excerpt from the Deutsches Ortsnamenbuch. There is no reason to believe that this is an innovation of the Gothic language. This is an original meaning that has lost its significance over the centuries and with the evolution of Germanic societies. A process similar to the one I advocate for þurpą but in the other direction. Once again, I don’t understand the point of your message. I never said that Old Norse or Old English was older than the other. I’m simply saying that the source you used (Lehmann) suggests that the word þurpą originally referred to a farm, and that the meaning “village” appeared later. In this discussion, the only reason to use medieval Germanic languages is to understand the semantic evolution of words from Proto‑Germanic onward. The context we’re interested in is Proto‑Germanic. In Old Norse, as in Gothic, the word derived from þurpą seems to have preserved its original meaning, that of a farm or agricultural estate. This supports my initial point: the meaning of þurpą in Proto‑Germanic must have been “farm.” And there is no doubt that Old Norse preserved the meaning of “farm” or “agricultural estate.” This is very clear in the poems of the Edda, especially in Hávamál and Vafþrúðnismál. In the Danelaw and in the earliest written records from Denmark, we see that þorps refers exclusively to secondary settlements that depend on a larger primary settlement. In those cases, þorps can refer both to hamlets and to isolated farms. We see the same thing in medieval Scandinavian law codes: þorp retains the meaning of “farm” as well as “village.” There is, however, a notable case in medieval Swedish law where þorp still means specifically “farm” in Old Swedish, which seems to have preserved this original meaning even longer. The evolution of the Germanic languages clearly shows this semantic shift from “farm” to “village.” It’s an understandable shift, since it follows the same pattern as Latin villa, which eventually gave the word “village.” I have taken the time to demonstrate that studies of place names generally indicate that -Heim was used in the oldest layer of place names. Without exception, these studies show that there were several periods characterized by different dynamics in the rules governing the naming of new settlements. It is clear that the trend involving -Dorf emerged relatively late, and this precisely explains what we observe in the various Germanic languages. There was a semantic shift that accompanied the social changes that transformed Germanic societies.

New anthem?