Classical Warfare AEA

[Emacz]

We actually have rome go from republic to empire, they are currently the only Empire

Kush is a tough one

[Thalatta]

The categorisation cannot be clean cut, because it mixes forms of government with sizes, which is related to how heterogeneous they were. Taking what they were for the most time (Macedonia was an Empire for a very few years):

Tribes: Britons, Gauls, Iberians, Germans.

City-states: Athenians, Spartans, Thebans.

Republics: Romans, Carthaginians.

Kingdoms: Macedonians, Ptolemies, Kushites.

Empires: Seleucids, Persians, Mauryans, Han.

 

 

[Emacz]

Ok, I’ll start with either city states or tribes.

would it be safe to say in general all tribal buildings are mostly wood?

some other ideas on what they may all have in common? 

[Grautvornix]

Well, they may be initially nomads. Also hunting could have a little bonus (they might therefore have two or three scout cavalry at the beginning instead of one) and farming could be available only later after technologies have been researched?

Not sure this woudl be changing much in the long run but it could nudge players towards a little different initial strategy.

Edited 15 hours ago by Grautvornix

[Emacz]

15 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

Well, they may be initially nomads. Also hunting could have a little bonus (they might therefore have two or three scout cavalry at the beginning instead of one) and farming could be available only later after technologies have been researched?

Not sure this woudl be changing much in the long run but it could nudge players towards a little different initial strategy.

Which civs would fall into this category?

[Outis]

2 hours ago, Emacz said:

would it be safe to say in general all tribal buildings are mostly wood?

In general yes, but Iberians have stronger towers than other civs in EA. They can be the exception though. Exceptions make the game fun!

 

[Grautvornix]

1 hour ago, Emacz said:

Which civs would fall into this category?

I am certainly not an expert by any means, but I believe, the Germans are potentially a good candidate (if we refer to their migration). Not so sure about Gauls or Brittons though.

[Outis]

3 hours ago, Emacz said:

Ok, I’ll start with either city states

Proposal for city-states:

 - citizen soldiers have better gathering and combat stats (not sure which ones to improve), but are more expensive. City-states had limited manpower compared to larger polities, but they had higher civic spirit.

- population cap is reduced by 10%. Similar thinking as above. 

- additional civic centers cost 50% higher. City-states did not expand like empires. All proposed city-states already have the theater to expand original area.

Note: all of this is a nightmare to balance but worth a try in a mod 

[Emacz]

35 minutes ago, Outis said:

In general yes, but Iberians have stronger towers than other civs in EA. They can be the exception though. Exceptions make the game fun!

 

Yeah, I made most of their buildings cost wood, similar to the tech that already existed for "celts" but I towers, forts, and ccs are exempt

[Emacz]

So I like this, Sparta already has the -10% pop penalty... so it should apply to Thebes and Athens?  Then Sparta may be strongest out of 3...

Im tornn on citizens gather/military... on one hand sparta wasnt very eco driven right? on the other we use some melee bonus for some of the tribes as well... So we will definitely have to clean things up.  All the city states have hoplite tradition  

[Outis]

1 minute ago, Emacz said:

towers, forts, and ccs are exempt

Agreed, i these should be stone building category with different durability as opposed to wooden buildings which are pretty much the rest for most civs.

[Emacz]

Well generally barracks cost 200 wood 100 stone for most civs... but the tribal ones now cost 300 wood only, 20% faster build time but 20% less health and capture points.... similar to temples, forges, all of those things are wood only.

[Outis]

9 minutes ago, Emacz said:

Im tornn on citizens gather/military

Im throwing ideas around

9 minutes ago, Emacz said:

so it should apply to Thebes and Athens?  Then Sparta may be strongest out of 3...

Sparta had manpower issues with respect to other Greek city-states. This was mainly due to their idea of a full citizen having the obligation to enter a Sysition with a regular donation, much like a membership fee. Over time, the number of upper class which could maintain this cost diminished. I guess, an ancient form of enshitification was in works .

All Greek city-states had restricted manpower compared to empires.

Considering both arguments, my proposal is:

- Athenians and Thebans as well as Spartans have more restrictive population limits.

- Spartans have a further limit on their champions which have excellent stats already. It does not have to be a hard limit, one idea is to have it as a percentage of current population.

 

Edited 13 hours ago by Outis

[Outis]

25 minutes ago, Emacz said:

on one hand sparta wasnt very eco driven right?

Very true. We can have their citizens be more productive but penalize the economy another way. Perhaps withhold some economic upgrades? I'm just riffing here 

 

25 minutes ago, Emacz said:

All the city states have hoplite tradition

On the other hand, maybe this is a good enough bonus for city-states. Maybe it can be adapted a little with a name change like civic pride.

Edited 13 hours ago by Outis

[Emacz]

Yeah, actually we renamed it hoplite reforms.

and I am now OK with the the of them getting the -10% pop bonus… even though Athens was maybe 2 to 3 times the size of Thebes… all 3 were by far the smallest of the 16 factions. Also I like maybe none of them having Will to fight, but stronger militiaty techs or something?

[Outis]

39 minutes ago, Emacz said:

on one hand sparta wasnt very eco driven right

One other idea: Spartans were very wary of foreigners and heavily restricted their entry into their lands. In fact, they thought foreign influence would corrupt their youth. Maybe restrict their ability to trade as well as their allies' ability to trade with them?

I also remember reading they used iron ingots rather than coins of precious metals as currency, but it sounds a bit like a myth. One thing is certain though: not a lot of Spartan coins are found in archeology. Another reason to penalize trade?

11 minutes ago, Emacz said:

Also I like maybe none of them having Will to fight, but stronger militiaty techs or something?

What's on your mind 

[Emacz]

Well I removed it for Sparta… but their military techs are a little stronger than the average, so by the time you get p3 full techs, they are still fully capable of fighting without it. 
For example we could start with city states -10% pop bonus. + 10% infantry attack (none of them really had great cavalry) no will to fight tech.

although I still think if give Sparta a little something to be a little stronger at least infantry wise. Unfortunately we have touched the navy and almost never play on water maps. That should definitely be Athens strength over Sparta.

Edited 12 hours ago by Emacz

[Emacz]

In one of our versions we had a bonus where CS for Brit’s/gauls and more HP. Cause where they bigger/fiercer in stature say compared to the Romans?  maybe I’m just thinking too much American dramatized Vikings on TV  but could do something similar if it could fit for the tribes. All melee + 25 health or something.

[Emacz]

Spartans have a further limit on their champions which have excellent stats already. It does not have to be a hard limit, one idea is to have it as a percentage of current population.

we actually did the opposite. There is no restriction on their champs… yes they are strong…. But champs can’t gather resources to produce more champs  you can only train 3 helots per every champ…. Although you can train up to 10 without.

i dont know how to do a percentage of population….. we also have it so spartiates take longer and longer to train as you phase up and tech up. So you need to mix in more helots and Perioikoi 

[Asher]

I haven't read all of the current discusion, but what do these "groupings" do? Is there like a teambonus if I have an ally who is in the same group?

[Emacz]

Maybe read the discussion:) we are trying to figure out what they will do. Just kinda different types of civs that have things in common. And eventually it will be more clear tribals are better/most suited for X, city states are better/most suited for Y

[Outis]

9 hours ago, Emacz said:

by the time you get p3 full techs, they are still fully capable of fighting without it. 

Are they able to defeat other fully-upgraded champion spearmen one to one?

Maybe Will To Fight could be differentiated for every civ or every civ category. Maybe have a big expensive tech common for city-states that alter stats in one way, then another for empires etc. Again, just riffing.

9 hours ago, Emacz said:

although I still think if give Sparta a little something to be a little stronger at least infantry wise.

Agreed. One on one, they should be able to beat infantry from other civs, but be lacking in other ways like economy, cavalry etc.

[Outis]

9 hours ago, Emacz said:

In one of our versions we had a bonus where CS for Brit’s/gauls and more HP.

Not sure about this. What would be great if made correctly: tribal societies have units which are strong when fighting one to one, but no or very little formation bonuses, whereas infantry from city-states, republics etc have better formation bonuses in such a way bigger formations are either equally matched or favor city-states and republics. 

[Thalatta]

Tribes: mostly wooden cheap buildings. That doesn’t mean they don’t have their identity, like German mobility, Iberian defenses, etc. They should deal with their lack of manpower with Confederations. Although these categories serve to structure and simplify things, incorrect generalisations should be avoided: Gauls would be good at fighting in formations, for example.

City-states: They should deal with their lack of manpower with Leagues (and Mercenaries). I’d avoid such unspecific names like “Civic Pride” (could apply to us!), I proposed @Emacz to change Hoplite Tradition to Hoplite Reform, since that’s how the literature calls that. I’d indeed remove the awfully named Will to Fight, and add some interestingly named necessary equivalent tech wherever needed. City-states indeed did not expand like empires (or republics and kingdoms), and I was a bit put off at the beginning when building more CCs with them. They should be colonies, and not do all what the original CC does. I think this is something that has to be reviewed for all civs, since some do have structures like this. I’m against “all proposed city-states already have the theater to expand original area”, Sparta didn’t have such a thing, I’ve already proposed to remove it.

Regarding the Spartans in particular: they were eco driven regarding agriculture, their lands were among the most fertile of the Greek, and should have a population penalty on top of the lower population just for being a city-state. Spartan trade could be penalised for many reasons, as Sekunda states, “the age at which a Spartan adult was allowed to live at home with his wile is not entirely clear, but he was not permitted into the marketplace to converse with his fellow adults until the age of 30”, while Cartledge says “overseas trade in essentials was relatively unimportant” and “relatively restricted”, although “Sparta became much more accessible with the opening up of local economy in the Hellenistic period”. The use of iron ingots is not a myth, but “there is no evidence that the retention of iron spits as a store of wealth and standard of value prevented internal economic exchanges”, and “there were many good reasons why Sparta had not coined previously. The metal would have had to be imported, whereas the iron used in Sparta’s traditional spit-money was present locally in abundant supply”. In any case, regarding an encompassing name for a civ bonus (actually, penalty) to penalise trade, Cartledge goes into great extents to argue that it’s not because of austerity but self-sufficiency, for which I’d name it Autarkism, given the passage “Sparta through its control of the Eurotas and Pamisos valleys was extraordinarily autarkic in essential foodstuffs; and its possession of abundant deposits of iron ore within its own frontiers may have been a contributory factor in the decision not to import silver to coin”. Of course, I’ve already proposed many of these things on: 

Edited 1 hour ago by Thalatta

[Emacz]

Love all this! Thank you, keep it coming  Although I guess if it's too much too soon I'll probably miss parts and need to ask again  

Not sure about this. What would be great if made correctly: tribal societies have units which are strong when fighting one to one, but no or very little formation bonuses, whereas infantry from city-states, republics etc have better formation bonuses in such a way bigger formations are either equally matched or favor city-states and republics

This would be nice, I need to think about if there is a way to do that... We do have a small bonus for Testudo, and Phalanx formations.. even though formations don't really work.  So similar to Greek city states, they could get a dmg bonus, but not have any "formation" bonus... but currently the only civs that have the formation bonuses are hoplite civs for phalanx, a couple other specific champ situations, and roman legionnaires/champ swords for Testudo.

@Thalatta yes, the cheaper wooden builds can be restricted... and then mobilization could be one of the other tribal bonuses. Also we keep referring to it as hoplite tradition, but yes I did rename it to hoplite reforms based on your Spartan post.

Im playing around with colonies for Sparta, so that could be added to all. Also I am removing the territory influence bonus from CC on phases ups for city states... Sparta doesnt have the theater.. and I could even remove tettirory bonus from theater and give it more of a "moral/efficiency" bonus

Sparta's farms are "food" drop sites, so you don't necessarily need to have them next to a "farmstead"

My only problem with giving sparta another pop penalty is Im OCD   and if its 10% already, that is 90, 180, 270 etc.... Also shouldn't it really be Thebes that is the smallest?