Problem: Extremely nice artwork depics complete fantasy city

[Anaxandridas ho Skandiates]

. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Anaxandridas ho Skandiates

[LordGood]

You did not do the legwork on this assertion, we were very thorough with the Kushites. I will give you the balustrade point. The mixing of civic and temple buildings is also a bit odd, and the watchtowers of course are an rts staple.

where you're getting byzantine i have no idea

[Lion.Kanzen]

[Anaxandridas ho Skandiates]

. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Anaxandridas ho Skandiates

[Lion.Kanzen]

Left the project. Any contribution by you, none.

And your promises to make art? Did you lose the desire? Aren't you in the mood?

You're not polite, it's more polite a rhinoceros and it's not an insult. If you were polite I would respect you.

Here you have insulted everyone. I can give you the list of each one.

Edited November 18, 2019 by Lion.Kanzen

[Anaxandridas ho Skandiates]

. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Anaxandridas ho Skandiates

[Anaxandridas ho Skandiates]

. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Anaxandridas ho Skandiates

[LordGood]

I would recommend taking a look through this topic @Sundiata did quite a bit of sleuthing to pull together the references we used to create the Kushite faction. You'll find everything aside from the balustrades there.

as for 3 storey buildings, even older sites such as carthage were said to have up to 6 storey apartment buildings? I dont quite understand that assertion, they were clearly capable of such things in antiquity

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

I   prefer the silence, it is wiser, and shows my indifference.

Perfect at last you got what you must to do,

[LordGood]

My guy, we're trying to resolve this, a little less provocation would be more than welcome

[Anaxandridas ho Skandiates]

. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Anaxandridas ho Skandiates

[Anaxandridas ho Skandiates]

. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Anaxandridas ho Skandiates

[Anaxandridas ho Skandiates]

. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Anaxandridas ho Skandiates

[LordGood]

Not much I can do about the civic center, those particular finds are set in stone (lol) however sundiata did approach me a while back to suggest we  introduce flat roofed house and civic structures for the purpose of realistic representation. I imagine what's overwhelming you is the prevalence of nubian vaults. Existant for sure but perhaps not in such quantities in an urban environment, nor would the roundhouses be.

its very much a back burner problem at the moment... unless @Sundiata would like to hone his 3D modelling skills by taking charge of it himself.

so it's been discussed and is planned, a good reminder to add it to the task thread

[Sundiata]

@Anaxandridas ho Skandiates You're doing yourself a real disservice here.

Almost everything of relevance can be found in the main thread linked by LordGood: The Kingdom of Kush: A Proper Introduction, read the first post. If you have more questions then, feel free to ask. As for the render itself, yes it's an artistic render that doesn't represent a historical reconstruction of a specific Kushite city. Other than that most of what you said (other than the balustrades) makes little sense.

Just to quickly address the doubt expressed by you, let me just quickly go through some of the refs to ease your mind. 

 

Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

The three-and-a-half-storeyed structure between the two Ptolemaic temples and all the houses are seemingly little more than Byzantine-inspired fantasy structures.

Kushite palaces (Naptan and Meroitic). These were all multistoried. 

Wad Ben Naqa (Meroitic):

 

B100 Napata, directly adjacent to the temple complex

 

B1200, next to B100, Napata

 

 

Reconstruction of the inner courtyard of B1500, Napata

 

Karanog, Meroitic 

 

elevation of various Kushite palaces. 

 

 

Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

The central Greek planned axis with palm trees is closer to an Alexandria city-scape.

Napata had a palm tree lined processional avenue leading from the Amun temple to the Nile, lined by at least three temples. Meroë had a processional avenue leading from the Amun temple to the pyramid fields of Begrawiya, lined by at least 4 temples. Muweis had a central avenue with a temple complex on one end, a palce on the other, and lined by smaller temples in between Almost every Kushite city also had a central avenue running parallel to the Nile. 

 

Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

All the structures are unreasonably huge, look at those tiny people. I'd like to offer a box of champagne to whomever can produce one serious solid scientific study showing that kushite buildings anywhere near those sizes were ever found. They simply did not exist.

The Great Amun Temple at Napata. The first temple was built by Thutmose III and was rebuilt several times during the New Kingdom. The rebuilt section of of the New Kingdom part of the Amun temple is actually the smallest part in the rear. During the Kushite 25th Dynasty, the Nubian pharaoh Piye massively expanded the temple with the addition of 2 enormous forecourts and pylons, in the 8th century BC. Rebuilding and renovations continued until the 1st century AD Meroitic period. This is essentially the holiest place in all of ancient Kush. Fun-fact, at c. 156 meters in length, this monumental temple was more than twice as large as the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens, which was built about 400 years later. More than a dozen other temples, several palaces, Napatan and Meroitic period pyramids and other remains are found at this site. At least 2 newly excavated temples on the precessional avenue aren't even depicted here. 

 

Note the person standing next to the intact pillar for an idea of scale.

 

During the Meroitic Period the temple took its final form after restorations and the addition of inner and outer kiosks, around the late 1st century BC, early 1st century AD

 

 

The Meroitic Amun temple of Meroë was over 120 meters in length:

 

The Amun temple at Naqa is the "smallest" one I'm familiar with: 

 

 

The Amun temple of Kawa, also known as the Temple of Taharqa, 25th Dynasty, 7th century BC

 

 

There were about 8 Amun temples that I'm aware of, at Meroë, Napata, Sanam, Dangeil, Kawa, Tabo, el Hassa and Naqa, and there's probably one that hasn't been excavated yet at Muweis. All of these were significantly substantial edifices built from either purely sandstone (Kawa), a combination of mudbrick and fired brick, or more commonly a combination of sandstone and brick. 

 

Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

I'd like to offer a box of champagne to whomever can produce one serious solid scientific study showing that kushite buildings anywhere near those sizes were ever found.

Sadly, I don't drink... 

Here's a comprehensive academic guide to the archaeology of Jebel Barkal: 

VisGuide.pdf

 

Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

So the question is: How does one make it clear to the newcomer-player that nothing like this city ever existed, except in the render-chamber of a 3d artist and within 0 A.D.? 

You're right, Kushite cities were actually even grander and much, much larger than this artistic render. Most PC's won't be able to handle the polygons of a one to one reconstruction... 

 

This is the Royal City, the central walled royal district of Meroë, and only a small part of the larger city. (the white parts within the walls of the Royal City aren't properly excavated yet). 

(the "temple of Augustus" was a sort of Kushite victory shrine to commemorate the war with Rome, where the decapitated head of Augustus was found buried beneath the steps of the entrance as a perpetual insult to the emperor. Same shrine where the fresco of a Roman captive was found. Just to avoid confusion) 

 

The mounds stretching to the north, east and south of the Royal city are barely excavated settlement mounds, where the common folk lived. There are even temples further than what this map shows and the pyramids are even further. It was a large and busy place. A veritable metropolis.

 

Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

Can anyone show me a pre-byzantine excavated kushite site with three-and-a-half storeys of that size, with cylinder-domes?

Are you talking about those Nubian Vaults? You might want to look up what a Nubian vault is, and why it's called as such. The first vaulted structures in the Kushite archaeological record are from Kerma, c. 2000BC... They've been familiar with the technique for a while. It's still found in Nubian villages in Egypt as well as Sudan today. All of the palaces I mentioned earlier were built on top of vaulted cellars. They used the vaulting technique because it's extremely strong, perfect for building storey-buildings, and doesn't require wood. 

 

Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

And that gigantic temple to its right, in the centre? It looks like the "Roman kiosk" from Naqa, fifteen times the size.

That's temple 300 from Musawwarat es Sufra (Meroitic), and it looks nothing like the "Roman kiosk" (which is actually a chapel to Hathor). The size isn't even that far off, actually... 

 

Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

It is also not necessary to add anything new, Sundiata already posted a wealth of material, including a much more reasonable reconstruction of a kushite cityscape, which features as would be expected, something which looks a lot more realistic:

 

That's Hamadab. A small walled satellite settlement a few km from Meroë. The main reason that it's significant is because of how well excavated it is. There was also a multistoried palace there, directly to the right of the temple. the foundations are so thick that it's believed to have been quite a few stories, but they're not sure how many... The Qatar Sudan Archaeological Project rendered it with 4 stories... 

 

Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

A stone structure with such a cylindrical dome, approaching the size in the city-scape above, is found in Aithiopia:

That's not in "Aithiopia". That's in the modern-day country of Ethiopia. 17th century Abyssinian architecture built by Emperor Fasilides. During Antiquity, when the Greeks and Romans were talking about Aethiopia, 9 out of 10 they were talking about Kush or it's periphery. They often identified Meroë and Napata as the capital cities of Aethiopia. Only later does the name start being associated with modern day Ethiopia, when the Mediterranean started coming into contact with other "Aethiops" (generic "black people") from Axum, but even then, they often called Axum by its name. 

 

Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

... but it dates to ~1760 A.D.

No it doesn't, it was built in the 17th century by Fasilides. Construction started in the 1630's...

There are also multistoried Aksumite stone palaces from Antiquity, if you're interested, not incomparable to the square Kushite palaces, in ground plan at least. This is a pre-Christian tradition, but continued during the Christian period [EDIT: there were actually multistoried palaces in the Pre-Aksumite period as well, but I'm not very familiar with them):

 

Dungur is probably the most famous one, but not even the biggest one...

 

Ta'akha Maryam was the biggest Aksumite palace, known to date. 

 

Edited November 18, 2019 by Sundiata

[sphyrth]

Now that's out of the way...

I think the OP Image looks great. Look at all the vibrant colors... looks like AoE4
XD

[Sundiata]

Just now, sphyrth said:

I think the OP Image looks great. Look at all the vibrant colors... looks like AoE4
XD

XD, I love it too... @pedro_blanco did a stellar job!

Top facebook comment: "This will be 0ad in 2025"

Imagine 0AD with a real-time physics based renderer. With raytracing enabled, who knows, one day 0AD will actually look like that in-game...   

 

@Anaxandridas ho Skandiates, why did you also go ahead and smear the image on the official facebook page? What's the point of that? 

Edited November 18, 2019 by Sundiata

[Genava55]

@Anaxandridas ho Skandiates I do not follow you on a few points but I think the references from Sundiata clarified some of your concerns, however I want to specify that the illustration has not been based on an actual academic reference for a good reason. This illustrations has been made from actual models in the game, inspired by the actual render of the game. This is not an illustration in the purpose to recreate exactly the reality seen in some excavations. Therefore, it stresses an important point to accept: the models in the game are not academic references, nor does follow academic standards. This is a RTS-game, the buildings follow not only the references posted in threads but also the references set for the gameplay and the design of 0 A.D.

This is an illustration to promote the game. This illustration is based on indirect and reinterpreted evidences. 

 

 

[Anaxandridas ho Skandiates]

. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Anaxandridas ho Skandiates

[Anaxandridas ho Skandiates]

. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Anaxandridas ho Skandiates

[Genava55]

15 minutes ago, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

But even on other subjects, I do assume that I have a right to express thoughts freely. Also when they are critical.

Absolutely. I have no problems with your message and your concerns by themselves. Contrary to some message said, your concerns do not make a disservice from my point of view.

19 minutes ago, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:

And in this case I stand by my original point: Some here really really want the Kushite world to have looked like that. It find it impossible to believe that it did. I see the elements in the references, but I do not see how in the wildest dreams of a historian that city could be even remotely extrapolated from the posted evidence.

I see a tendency here of taking the large Egyptian temples constructed by Thutmose III and Rameses II and other pharaos, as evidence for Kushite mega-architecture and mega-cities, because Kushite rulers renovated or added features or courtyards to existing structures.

This is certainly problematic in several ways, when speaking of a 'Kushite' architecture. It would be worth a discussion, but of course it is futile to discuss it if anyone questioning the status quo is a heretic who is insulted and ridiculed.

Kushite civilization during the Meroitic period has the difficulty to inheriting several monuments from previous periods and keeping them in function without important updates in the architecture and in the design. But as does the temple of Jupiter in Rome on the Capitoline Hill, an Etruscan temple renovated multiples times but mostly the same.

However, the Kushites building in the game do not seem to overuse Egyptian architecture, this is the case only in key buildings where the argument of a legacy can be justified (like the wonder). Maybe you should be more specific and doing a case-by-case discussion, specifying which building type cause you concern.

[Anaxandridas ho Skandiates]

. 
 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Anaxandridas ho Skandiates

[Nescio]

The problem I have with that specific background is that, unlike the others, it doesn't preserve the aspect ratio:

Spoiler

Too fat:

Too thin:

[Stan`]

That's because we have no way to clamp the right part to the right... I have been messing with it for hours. Patches are welcome.

[Anaxandridas ho Skandiates]

. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Anaxandridas ho Skandiates