Why does Sparta have a theater

[ShadowOfHassen]

Why does Sparta has a theater? Sparta is set after the lycurgan reforms and unless I'm missing some historical evidence they wouldn't have theaters.

I think the theater should be removed and to compensate the Spartans special barracks should get another upgrade.

I know this could be getting in part of gameplay discussion, but I'm more wondering about the history part.

[Vantha]

I agree, I think there is a theater in Sparta, but it was built at a time as Sparta was already part of the Roman Empire. The Spartans should not have a theater in the game.

 

Edited July 13, 2023 by Vantha

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

I have before mentioned the strangeness of this inclusion.  Honestly the theatre might just be a better thing to have exclusively for Athens.

[hyperion]

12 hours ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

I have before mentioned the strangeness of this inclusion.  Honestly the theatre might just be a better thing to have exclusively for Athens.

Athens might be the originator but by the time of 0ad I believe it already spread across Greek, so giving it to others doesn't feel that wired to me. If it was a named theater used as a wonder then it would be a different story.

[borg-]

We have a patch in the works for Sparta, maybe this is a good time to remove the theater if they decide to.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

7 hours ago, hyperion said:

Athens might be the originator but by the time of 0ad I believe it already spread across Greek, so giving it to others doesn't feel that wired to me. If it was a named theater used as a wonder then it would be a different story.

I would look at the case like this.  Suppose that a strategy game has America represented in it, and to show the importance of fast food there, it has access to the McDonald's building.  However, McDonald's is an international corporation, so obviously Canada and France should have it too.

That seems to be the logic behind giving it to every Hellenistic/Hellenic faction.  Granted, there are playwrights that are not Athenian.  I found browsing Encyclopaedia Britannica's list of Greek playwrights that there is Epicharmus (From Sicily), Alexander Aetolus (Who served in the Ptolemaic court), Herodas (from Cos), Philemon (from Sicily), Sophron of Syracuse, Choerilus (from Samos).  The rest are Athenian, making them make up 70% of listed Greek playwrights.  I'm sure there were many other writers from other cities, and given the number of Sicilians represented, I would endorse a Sicilian theatre, but the whole notion of extending that to other factions feels a bit strange.

[ShadowOfHassen]

I'm researching the theater for the encyclopedia right now and the Macedonians did as well. I'm just sure that Sparta who threw away everything fancy wouldn't have some place to watch plays.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

17 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

I'm researching the theater for the encyclopedia right now and the Macedonians did as well.

This is true, but as per my above post, French have McDonald's.  

Let's perhaps reframe it this way.  It goes without saying that philosophy was extremely important in Athens, so in a hypothetical world, let's say that an academy building is introduced to represent that.  Ah, but Aristotle mentored Alexander the Great, so surely Academies should be buildable for them also.  I am not doubting the fact that Macedonians built theatres, in fact the models used to represent theatres are entirely unlike the hillside amphitheatres Athenians would have sat at to watch a play of Sophocles.  The point I am contending is that theatres are not core to Macedonian identity, and in a game in which Hellenic/Hellenistic factions are ubiquitous, giving these factions differentiation is helpful.

In short, there are obvious reasons for Sparta to not have a theatre.  For Macedonia it is a bit more of a mixed bag, but I think it would be entirely appropriate to remove it.  Its presence is an artefact of when all Hellenic factions were a single one.  

[ShadowOfHassen]

11 hours ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

This is true, but as per my above post, French have McDonald's.  

Let's perhaps reframe it this way.  It goes without saying that philosophy was extremely important in Athens, so in a hypothetical world, let's say that an academy building is introduced to represent that.  Ah, but Aristotle mentored Alexander the Great, so surely Academies should be buildable for them also.  I am not doubting the fact that Macedonians built theatres, in fact the models used to represent theatres are entirely unlike the hillside amphitheatres Athenians would have sat at to watch a play of Sophocles.  The point I am contending is that theatres are not core to Macedonian identity, and in a game in which Hellenic/Hellenistic factions are ubiquitous, giving these factions differentiation is helpful.

In short, there are obvious reasons for Sparta to not have a theatre.  For Macedonia it is a bit more of a mixed bag, but I think it would be entirely appropriate to remove it.  Its presence is an artefact of when all Hellenic factions were a single one.  

If people want to get rid of other theaters, it's fine (just Sparta should be the first to lose it.) Actually if it was an Athens only building it could become a bit more useful than an eye candy building to get more area. Like maybe play wars?

[Genava55]

20 hours ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

Let's perhaps reframe it this way.  It goes without saying that philosophy was extremely important in Athens, so in a hypothetical world, let's say that an academy building is introduced to represent that.  Ah, but Aristotle mentored Alexander the Great, so surely Academies should be buildable for them also.  I am not doubting the fact that Macedonians built theatres, in fact the models used to represent theatres are entirely unlike the hillside amphitheatres Athenians would have sat at to watch a play of Sophocles.  The point I am contending is that theatres are not core to Macedonian identity, and in a game in which Hellenic/Hellenistic factions are ubiquitous, giving these factions differentiation is helpful.

Indeed, if the Romans don't have theatres in game, the Macedonians, Seleucids and Ptolemies should not. It should be limited to Athenians.

[ShadowOfHassen]

4 hours ago, Genava55 said:

Indeed, if the Romans don't have theatres in game, the Macedonians, Seleucids and Ptolemies should not. It should be limited to Athenians.

Agreed.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

The theater at Sparta was reconstructed during the Roman period, replacing an older stone theater dating back to 200 B.C. which superseded an ancient wooden theater dating back to the 5th century B.C.

 

 

[Genava55]

I think that a Palaestra or a Gymnasion would be more suitable.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 hours ago, Genava55 said:

I think that a Palaestra or a Gymnasion would be more suitable.

I agree, though having an archaic wooden theatron in-game would be nice too. 

The original spec for 0 A.D. was to allow each civ to have 2 "Special Buildings", ie, SB1 and SB2. Currently for Sparta, that's the Syssition and the Theatron. You'd replace the Theatron with a Gymnasion/Palaistra?

[Genava55]

@Thorfinn the Shallow Minded do you agree with @wowgetoffyourcellphone about the wooden theatre of Sparta?

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

3 hours ago, Genava55 said:

@Thorfinn the Shallow Minded do you agree with @wowgetoffyourcellphone about the wooden theatre of Sparta?

I don't.  Even with material evidence of a theatre, there is no evidence to my knowledge of Spartan playwrights.  This could very well be due to few documents surviving from that time, but by and large it seems that most Greek playwrights were either Athenian or Sicilian.  I think that parts of Sparta's nonmaterial culture can be celebrated in other ways.  Sparta for instance had poets like Tyrtaeus and Alcman.  I am more than willing to suggest having a Spartan theatre model for editor use.

[Genava55]

On 15/07/2023 at 1:02 PM, Genava55 said:

I think that a Palaestra or a Gymnasion would be more suitable.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tentative_reconstruction_of_the_palaestra_of_Aristotle’s_Lyceum_(Lykeion)_by_Dimitris_Koukoulas,_2013,_Athens_(45180131185).jpg

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

It's essentially the Athenian gymnasium. 

[Genava55]

4 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

It's essentially the Athenian gymnasium. 

Yep and it could be exclusive to the Spartans if the theater is exclusive to the Athenians.

Otherwise there is the dromos of Sparta that could be unique.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

On 15/11/2023 at 11:51 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

It's essentially the Athenian gymnasium. 

While I don't disagree that the gymnasium would be a redundant feature that would be hard to justify from a gameplay function, it is somewhat ironic since the practice of publicly exercising naked was original to Spartans.  

I think that the Dromos could be interesting, but I would much prefer something that could change up gameplay, and I think one option would be to make it so that Spartans could not make more than one Civic Centre and future expansion would be done with a weaker, cheaper fortress, much like the Bulgarian Krepost in Age of Empires II.  The appeal I find to this is that during the post-Peloponnesian War era, Sparta extended its authority by establishing garrisons in other cities like Thebes, and this could be a cool way of representing that.  Better yet, it could be unique as a structure you could build in allied territory as a means of supporting or even coercing them depending on the way diplomacy functions in a game.  

[alre]

On 17/11/2023 at 2:03 PM, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

While I don't disagree that the gymnasium would be a redundant feature that would be hard to justify from a gameplay function, it is somewhat ironic since the practice of publicly exercising naked was original to Spartans.  

I think that the Dromos could be interesting, but I would much prefer something that could change up gameplay, and I think one option would be to make it so that Spartans could not make more than one Civic Centre and future expansion would be done with a weaker, cheaper fortress, much like the Bulgarian Krepost in Age of Empires II.  The appeal I find to this is that during the post-Peloponnesian War era, Sparta extended its authority by establishing garrisons in other cities like Thebes, and this could be a cool way of representing that.  Better yet, it could be unique as a structure you could build in allied territory as a means of supporting or even coercing them depending on the way diplomacy functions in a game.  

spartans also had colonies.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

On 20/11/2023 at 1:44 AM, alre said:

spartans also had colonies.

This is true, but it was hardly an aggressive coloniser like Athens or Corinth.  Likewise, its colonies functioned differently from others due to a major idea behind why most other city-states established theirs: trade.  Like later colonial effort, many colonies were a means of the parent state exporting finished goods to the colony for commodities.  

Spartan interest for this was practically minimal, and the motive behind their founding Tarentum, perhaps their most prominent colony, only came after an internal crisis following the Messenian Wars.  Basically a fortress like structure could better represent their mode of expansion especially following the Peloponnesian Wars and would help identify them as a centralised civilisation that only expands to make small pockets of territory for key resources.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 17/11/2023 at 8:03 AM, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

While I don't disagree that the gymnasium would be a redundant feature that would be hard to justify from a gameplay function, it is somewhat ironic since the practice of publicly exercising naked was original to Spartans.  

I think that the Dromos could be interesting, but I would much prefer something that could change up gameplay, and I think one option would be to make it so that Spartans could not make more than one Civic Centre and future expansion would be done with a weaker, cheaper fortress, much like the Bulgarian Krepost in Age of Empires II.  The appeal I find to this is that during the post-Peloponnesian War era, Sparta extended its authority by establishing garrisons in other cities like Thebes, and this could be a cool way of representing that.  Better yet, it could be unique as a structure you could build in allied territory as a means of supporting or even coercing them depending on the way diplomacy functions in a game.  

Okay. Thoughts:

This Fortress expansion could have a smaller territory effect, like Military Colonies, and only train women and Spartiate champs. Or not train women at all.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

40 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

This Fortress expansion could have a smaller territory effect, like Military Colonies, and only train women and Spartiate champs. Or not train women at all.

This more or less.  I would add that it should not be a resource drop off point and be exclusively for training champions as you mentioned.  

[Gurken Khan]

I build theaters with any civ I can (more territory = more good), so I wouldn't be happy if they were removed; but maybe we can come up with something more historically grounded. Maybe we reserve the stone theater to Athens and give the other Hellenistic factions wooden theaters (half the effect?) to represent their lesser cultural impact?

 

On 16/11/2023 at 11:26 AM, Genava55 said:

Otherwise there is the dromos of Sparta that could be unique.

Your first picture looks like a horse race thingy, which probably wouldn't be fitting for Sparta. Did they have a foot race thingy like in your 2nd pic? Maybe we could do something with that. (Heroes, tecs to improve inf speed...)

 

2 hours ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

Tarentum, perhaps their most prominent colony....  Basically a fortress like structure could better represent their mode of expansion

When I read about Tarentum I don't know if a beefed up fortress represents it better than a military colony or maybe even something like a Cranogion.