Art needed: remaining nomadic structures

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Hi artists of 0ad, the nomadic factions need some additional buildings to fill up the tech tree and round out their content:

• Royal Yurt (xiongnu) : This is supposed to be a larger and more decorated yurt that would house the leaders of smaller subgroups within the xiongnu people as a whole. Each royal yurt will allow for 3 warlord units and provide 10 pop just like a house.
• Dock (xiongnu/scythians): This should be a very simplistic building. Its completely ahistorical, but a necessary structure for the nomads to fit in. It could basically be a yurt on land with a rope ladder serving as a boat ramp. Possibly some scrap wood could be added, or the 'skeleton' of a small canoe or river boat.
• Stable (xiongnu/scythians): This should be a simple cover for horses and/or equipment, possibly tarp-based. A small fence would complete the structure, making it rectangular.
• Ovoo (Scythians): The scythian ovoo is currently the xiongnu one, where it was actually built differently with mostly wood piled up and an ornament at the top.
• Wonder (Scythians): Kurgan (burial mound).
  • https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/gold-of-the-great-steppe-exhibition

Some help on these items would be awesome!

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

26 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Wonder (Scythians): Kurgan (burial mound).

• https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/gold-of-the-great-steppe-exhibition

 

 

Wonder: Royal Kurgan tumulus.

• A large earthen mount with eye candy around it (see how the mound is ringed by standing stones/stelae; we can add additional culture by using the enigmatic Scythian "stelae" found throughout the steppe).

 

 

 

• Can have various "stages" of construction:

28 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

• Stable (xiongnu/scythians): This should be a simple cover for horses and/or equipment, possibly tarp-based. A small fence would complete the structure, making it rectangular.

We like the Mongolian stable from AOE4 as an inspiration:

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 01/10/2023 at 7:28 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

• Ovoo (Scythians): The scythian ovoo is currently the xiongnu one, where it was actually built differently with mostly wood piled up and an ornament at the top.

 

We can call this an "Altar" instead of an Ovoo. Here is some relevant information:

 

Quote

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Scythian_religion#The_Scythian_"Ares"

The Scythian "Ares," that is the Scythian war god equated by Herodotus with the Greek god Ares (Αρης), corresponded to the Iranic deity Verethragna, and might possibly have been an offspring of Tāpayantī. The Scythian "Ares" was also a god of kingship, and the use of horses and of the blood and right arms of prisoners in his cult was a symbolic devotion of the swiftness of horses and the strength of men to this god who had similar powers.

The Scythian and Sarmatian "Ares" was represented by an akīnakēs sword planted upwards at the top of a tall square altar made of brushwood of which three sides were vertical and the fourth was inclined to allow access to it. The Scythian "Ares" was given blood sacrifices and his representation in the form of a sword are evidence of his military function.

The tallness of the mound which acted as the altar to the Scythian "Ares," as well as the practice of throwing the right arms of prisoners sacrificed to him in the sky, are evidence of the celestial nature of the Scythian "Ares" as a god of the airspace, that is the practice of throwing these sacrificed arms in the air indicate that the Scythian "Ares" was associated to the gods of the sky and wind, Vāta and Vāiiu, and more especially the wind, since the wind-god Vāiiu was the first incarnation of Verethragnaand a special carrier of fārnā/xᵛarᵊnah. This is also recorded in the works of the Greek author Lucian of Samosata, who recorded that the Scythians worshipped the Wind and the Sword as gods, referring to the dual nature of the Scythian "Ares" as a god of both the Wind, which brings gives life, and the Sword, which brings death; the dual nature of this god is also visible in the akīnakēs used to represent him being shaped like a phallus, thus being a deadly weapon which was also shaped in the form of a life-giving organ.

The Thracian neighbours of the Scythians also represented their war god with an iron sword and offered him bloody sacrificed and wine libations, although it is unknown whether the Thracians adopted this custom from the Scythians or vice versa.

The Sarmatians similarly represented their "Ares" in the form of a sword planted upright, and, according to Tadeusz Sulimirski, this form of worship continued among the descendants of the Sarmatians, the Alans, through to the 4th century AD; this tradition may be reflected in Jordanes's assertion that Attila had obtained the sacred Scythian sword which had fallen from the sky that he called the "Sword of Mars," and which he believed made him powerful in war and made of him the "prince of the entire world."

 

Quoted here is a passage from Herodotus regarding Ares and the sword cult:

Quote

 

Every district in each of the governments has a structure sacred to Ares; namely, a pile of bundles of sticks three eighths of a mile wide and long, but of a lesser height, on the top of which there is a flattened four-sided surface; three of its sides are sheer, but the fourth can be ascended.

Every year a hundred and fifty wagon-loads of sticks are heaped upon this; for the storms of winter always make it sink down. On this sacred pile an ancient scimitar of iron is set for each people: their image of Ares. They bring yearly sacrifice of sheep and goats and horses to this scimitar, offering to these symbols even more than they do to the other gods.

Of enemies that they take alive, they sacrifice one man in every hundred, not as they sacrifice sheep and goats, but differently. They pour wine on the men's heads and cut their throats over a bowl; then they carry the blood up on to the pile of sticks and pour it on the scimitar.

They carry the blood up above, but down below by the sacred pile they cut off all the slain men's right arms and hands and throw these into the air, and depart when they have sacrificed the rest of the victims; the arm lies where it has fallen, and the body apart from it.

Herodotus: Histories book 4 chapter 62

 

 

Also: 

 

Edited October 15, 2023 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[nifa]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salbyk_kurgan

reference for a square kurgan, the biggest one in the valley of kings. The megaliths are still there today, that makes it easier to get an impression

Edited April 4 by nifa

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Hm potential wonder?

[Lion.Kanzen]

On 01/10/2023 at 5:28 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Royal Yurt (xiongnu) : This is supposed to be a larger and more decorated yurt that would house the leaders of smaller subgroups within the xiongnu people as a whole. Each royal yurt will allow for 3 warlord units and provide 10 pop just like a house.

Are needed. New textures for this one, a prettier version. But I don't know how that would be historically correct.

Patterns and symbols are needed for both cultures.

It takes a lot of research and references.

[Lion.Kanzen]

On 01/10/2023 at 5:56 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

• ).

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

• Can have various "stages" of construction:

 

We like the Mongolian stable from AOE4 as an inspiration:

I can try.

I can start with research for a change or have enough variations.

Then I draw.

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Wikipedia:

The Scythian and Sarmatian "Ares" was represented by an akīnakēs sword planted upwards at the top of a tall square altar made of brushwood of which three sides were vertical and the fourth was inclined to allow access to it. 

So, something like this?

    __l_ 
   /   |
  /    |
 /.....|

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

9 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Wikipedia:

The Scythian and Sarmatian "Ares" was represented by an akīnakēs sword planted upwards at the top of a tall square altar made of brushwood of which three sides were vertical and the fourth was inclined to allow access to it. 

So, something like this?

    __l_ 
   /   |
  /    |
 /.....|

 

Something like that, but the sloped side would be a lot less steep. 

[Genava55]

18 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

The Scythian and Sarmatian "Ares"

Herodotus, book 4, ch.62 : This is their way of sacrificing to other gods and these are the beasts offered; but their sacrifices to Ares are of this sort. Every district in each of the governments has a structure sacred to Ares; namely, a pile of bundles of sticks three eighths of a mile wide and long, but of a lesser height, on the top of which there is a flattened four-sided surface; three of its sides are sheer, but the fourth can be ascended. Every year a hundred and fifty wagon-loads of sticks are heaped upon this; for the storms of winter always make it sink down. On this sacred pile an ancient scimitar of iron is set for each people: their image of Ares. They bring yearly sacrifice of sheep and goats and horses to this scimitar, offering to these symbols even more than they do to the other gods. Of enemies that they take alive, they sacrifice one man in every hundred, not as they sacrifice sheep and goats, but differently. They pour wine on the men's heads and cut their throats over a bowl; then they carry the blood up on to the pile of sticks and pour it on the scimitar. They carry the blood up above, but down below by the sacred pile they cut off all the slain men's right arms and hands and throw these into the air, and depart when they have sacrificed the rest of the victims; the arm lies where it has fallen, and the body apart from it.

 

Archaeological evidence: https://www.academia.edu/11582741/Scythian_sanctuaries_of_Ares_archaeological_date_and_Herodotus_testimonies_in_English_