Amerindian

[Wesley]

Amerindian

I think to challenge the Zapotec's we need the Amerindians in the Terra Maga mod. 

The major external threat from the north are hunter gatherer tribes, that farmed when they could, from northern Mexico's deserts. The Mesoamericans called them Chichimeca which may mean dog people. It’s hard to see how the Chichimeca could be a threat if there is not an influx of peoples from further north replacing losses. One major Amerindian tribe in Arizona is the Chiricahua a similar sounding word. Could and Aztec simply messed up the tribal name creating a new hybrid word? 

Phil Barker and Richard Brodly Scott in DBM army lists [De Bellis Miltitudinis] raises the possibility that they may have been from the Pueblo cultures. They cite linguistic connections as I do above. They don't give useful references or argument on page 41 of book 3. 
Another author, Aurelio Locsin III in the Gurps Aztec RPG argues that they may have been southern coastal plains Indians. Known as Atakapans [Texas/ Rio Grande]. Essentially the same thing. 
These are not primary sources. We are just about the only games project that does that. 
This is all also outside the time frame, post 500 AD. However, there are north facing defences in the Zapotec valleys. The technology it not different from 300 BC to 1600 AD. Trade with Amerindians north of the Rio Grande did occur.

Amerindians also fit the game in another way, they had metals. Most do not know this. While they did not smelt any metal, there were native copper rocks in the glacial till across North America. Native copper does not need to be refined or smelted. These were cold hammered into jewellery, sacred items and tools. Copper weapons were found; often axes, tomahawk, knives and scrapers. Copper does not make good swords, so swords are rare. Corn does not need sickles to harvest so sickle swords are not found. Metal weapons may have been limited because it was too valuable to waste or risk and lose on the battlefield. Not all tribes had metal but not all European towns, villages and tribes had metals either.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_America#Northern_America

North America did not have a written script. However, wampum was a proto-script. Wampum were beads forming a 2-dimensional mat. The colour patterns conveyed names, a few patterns were either ideograms or places. All tribes and family had a wampum name. It was mainly for treaties and deals. There are papers on it being an idiographic memory aid and proto script I'll see if I can find them. 


It was not money, but it was mistaken for money and used as money by the white people [that could not read it.] The most famous wampum were treaty documents not payments, but some were gibberish that the Indians politely accepted. It was never a full language like others, but it was heading there. 
Several written languages were produced by Christian missionaries on contact. Some draw on the wampum patterns. So not a written language but then we have no translatable Xiongnu or Scythian scripts or works either.   
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampum

Another reason to do the Amerindians that we get a nomad civilisation without the horse. That is something no other game has tried. Note: I do want them to have horses in the game but not at the start and not easily, obtained with a Hero unit.

The main draft animal in North America was the dog. These pulled sleds in winter, north of Kansas & Kentucky where winter snow was reliable. In summer and south of those states where snow was rarer, they used Travios. Travios is two poles harnessed to a dog (or horse later) with the other ends dragging on the ground. It had a deck of sticks, slats, netting, leather or a basket. The load was only 20 to 30 kg, but the tribes often had several dogs per family. Indian tribes going cross country travelled light. Their use of dogs may be the reason for why the Chichimeca were called dog people. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travois
They also used canoes on the rivers and most central American Indians were riverine tribes (or lake shores) before the horse. 

The southern tribes had adobe, mud brick, with earthen monuments. 

The northern woodland and river tribes had wood and matting structures. Log and pole structures. Palisades were common.


Nomad structures were Wigwams. Small domed huts of bent branch and matting. Tipi's of leathers. The Tipi poles doubled as tarvois poles on the move. 
      
Wigwams.

I'm thinking either two civilisations in an appropriate mod or one civilisation with two architecture styles triggered by a toggle on the town centre. 

Units do not significantly differ from north to south which is why the one civ with two styles is an option. 

This would allow an exploration of an interesting peoples. It would allow innovation and allow the Zapotec's to face a historically accurate foe. 

P.S. If this is in the wrong place someone fix it and teach me a archain art of navigating the site. lol. 

[Stan`]

Unfortunately we can not (and will not) add them if they don't fit the time frame - 500 B.C. - 0 B.C. Terra Magna uses the same time frame as the game does. However it can totally go in a separate mod.

[asterix]

28 minutes ago, Wesley said:

Amerindian

I think to challenge the Zapotec's we need the Amerindians in the Terra Maga mod. 

The major external threat from the north are hunter gatherer tribes, that farmed when they could, from northern Mexico's deserts. The Mesoamericans called them Chichimeca which may mean dog people. It’s hard to see how the Chichimeca could be a threat if there is not an influx of peoples from further north replacing losses. One major Amerindian tribe in Arizona is the Chiricahua a similar sounding word. Could and Aztec simply messed up the tribal name creating a new hybrid word? 

Phil Barker and Richard Brodly Scott in DBM army lists [De Bellis Miltitudinis] raises the possibility that they may have been from the Pueblo cultures. They cite linguistic connections as I do above. They don't give useful references or argument on page 41 of book 3. 
Another author, Aurelio Locsin III in the Gurps Aztec RPG argues that they may have been southern coastal plains Indians. Known as Atakapans [Texas/ Rio Grande]. Essentially the same thing. 
These are not primary sources. We are just about the only games project that does that. 
This is all also outside the time frame, post 500 AD. However, there are north facing defences in the Zapotec valleys. The technology it not different from 300 BC to 1600 AD. Trade with Amerindians north of the Rio Grande did occur.

Amerindians also fit the game in another way, they had metals. Most do not know this. While they did not smelt any metal, there were native copper rocks in the glacial till across North America. Native copper does not need to be refined or smelted. These were cold hammered into jewellery, sacred items and tools. Copper weapons were found; often axes, tomahawk, knives and scrapers. Copper does not make good swords, so swords are rare. Corn does not need sickles to harvest so sickle swords are not found. Metal weapons may have been limited because it was too valuable to waste or risk and lose on the battlefield. Not all tribes had metal but not all European towns, villages and tribes had metals either.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_America#Northern_America

North America did not have a written script. However, wampum was a proto-script. Wampum were beads forming a 2-dimensional mat. The colour patterns conveyed names, a few patterns were either ideograms or places. All tribes and family had a wampum name. It was mainly for treaties and deals. There are papers on it being an idiographic memory aid and proto script I'll see if I can find them. 


It was not money, but it was mistaken for money and used as money by the white people [that could not read it.] The most famous wampum were treaty documents not payments, but some were gibberish that the Indians politely accepted. It was never a full language like others, but it was heading there. 
Several written languages were produced by Christian missionaries on contact. Some draw on the wampum patterns. So not a written language but then we have no translatable Xiongnu or Scythian scripts or works either.   
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampum

Another reason to do the Amerindians that we get a nomad civilisation without the horse. That is something no other game has tried. Note: I do want them to have horses in the game but not at the start and not easily, obtained with a Hero unit.

The main draft animal in North America was the dog. These pulled sleds in winter, north of Kansas & Kentucky where winter snow was reliable. In summer and south of those states where snow was rarer, they used Travios. Travios is two poles harnessed to a dog (or horse later) with the other ends dragging on the ground. It had a deck of sticks, slats, netting, leather or a basket. The load was only 20 to 30 kg, but the tribes often had several dogs per family. Indian tribes going cross country travelled light. Their use of dogs may be the reason for why the Chichimeca were called dog people. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travois
They also used canoes on the rivers and most central American Indians were riverine tribes (or lake shores) before the horse. 

The southern tribes had adobe, mud brick, with earthen monuments. 

The northern woodland and river tribes had wood and matting structures. Log and pole structures. Palisades were common.


Nomad structures were Wigwams. Small domed huts of bent branch and matting. Tipi's of leathers. The Tipi poles doubled as tarvois poles on the move. 
      
Wigwams.

I'm thinking either two civilisations in an appropriate mod or one civilisation with two architecture styles triggered by a toggle on the town centre. 

Units do not significantly differ from north to south which is why the one civ with two styles is an option. 

This would allow an exploration of an interesting peoples. It would allow innovation and allow the Zapotec's to face a historically accurate foe. 

P.S. If this is in the wrong place someone fix it and teach me a archain art of navigating the site. lol. 

Potentially it could be added in 

worked in here https://github.com/0ADMods/pre-colonial-mod

[Sundiata]

4 hours ago, asterix said:

Potentially it could be added in 

I'm pretty sure @Trinketos would be happy with some more helping hands  

[Trinketos]

2 hours ago, Sundiata said:

I'm pretty sure @Trinketos would be happy with some more helping hands  

You are right, 

But first I have to commit the new resource

and update the credist of the people who helped me 

 

[Wesley]

Note: there is no rush. 
 

[Wesley]

22 hours ago, stanislas69 said:

Unfortunately we can not (and will not) add them if they don't fit the time frame - 500 B.C. - 0 B.C. Terra Magna uses the same time frame as the game does. However it can totally go in a separate mod.

I'm not actually talking about the peoples that attacked the Aztecs in 14 -1600 AD I'm just referencing them. Most Pueblo and other cultures are earlier and peaked within the time frame of 500 BC to 0 BC or the more general time frame of 500 BC to 500 AD. Whether they attacked is debatable. Two warlike cultures within 500 km is a recipe for a fight. March 500 km out of Rome and your still in Italy. But yes a separate mod is as I said an option. 

[Genava55]

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-evidence-idea-america-civilization-sophisticated.html#!

 

New evidence supports idea that America's first civilization was made up of 'sophisticated' engineers

The Native Americans who occupied the area known as Poverty Point in northern Louisiana more than 3,000 years ago long have been believed to be simple hunters and gatherers. But new Washington University in St. Louis archaeological findings paint a drastically different picture of America's first civilization.

 

Far from the simplicity of life sometimes portrayed in anthropology books, these early Indigenous people were highly skilled engineers capable of building massive earthen structures in a matter of months—possibly even weeks—that withstood the test of times, the findings show.

"We as a research community—and population as a whole—have undervalued native people and their ability to do this work and to do it quickly in the ways they did," said Tristram R. "T.R." Kidder, lead author and the Edward S. and Tedi Macias Professor of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences.

"One of the most remarkable things is that these earthworks have held together for more than 3,000 years with no failure or major erosion. By comparison, modern bridges, highways and dams fail with amazing regularity because building things out of dirt is more complicated than you would think. They really were incredible engineers with very sophisticated technical knowledge."

The findings were published in Southeastern Archaeology on September, 1, 2021. Washington University's Kai Su, Seth B. Grooms, along with graduates Edward R. Henry (Colorado State) and Kelly Ervin (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service) also contributed to the paper.

The Poverty Point World Heritage site consists of a massive 72-foot-tall earthen mound and concentric half circle ridges. The structures were constructed by hunter-gatherers approximately 3,400 years ago from nearly 2 million cubic yards of soil. Amazingly, this was done without the luxury of modern tools, domesticated animals or even wheeled carts.

[Genava55]

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02SH6hp9hyRm79oEDnvMMXMm6yVt7ZcGQtL9DYchhirfvNYmcfCbVKq3dVynyN7uiBl&id=100028835929955