Shadows in the Desert - An Ancient Middle East Mod

[duckwolf2]

guess want title the ancient assyrians have

(click to show/hide)

lords of the massacre

hint : Assyrians were one of the most warlike people in history, lovers of the violence of the war and hunt

[TrinityArse]

Mhm...
 

[Roach XI the Magnificent]

guess want title the ancient assyrians have

(click to show/hide)

lords of the massacre

hint : Assyrians were one of the most warlike people in history, lovers of the violence of the war and hunt

How informative. None of us knew that!

[Sayd Ûthman]

Roach, I propose you stop being an ******* for some time, can you ?

[Roach XI the Magnificent]

Roach, I propose you stop being an ******* for some time, can you ?

Try to figure the answer to that question out yourself.

[Executor-64-]

Roach thats not very cool  :/
if you have problems with people posting on the thread (witch is the point of the forum)
then why not just keep that to yourself... you aren't realy acomplishing anything by letting us know (except maybe get watched)

so what i wanted to ask is

(with risking of being told to read the other 80 pages of chat, wich i kinna ran through)
how are the desert maps going to look exactly, are there new quests, is there a chariot (and if so how does it work - is it like in wedding dance or something?), how are you going to overcome the whole vassal system that was always a big problem for non-medieval mods.

[duckwolf2]

guess want title the ancient Assyrians have

(click to show/hide)

lords of the massacre

hint : Assyrians were one of the most warlike people in history, lovers of the violence of the war and hunt

How informative. None of us knew that!

How many people know Assyrians with out seeing word on the back of a game box, going to a museum, or using wikipedia.Most World History Books very little information at most 1-2 pages.

[Sahran]

(with risking of being told to read the other 80 pages of chat, wich i kinna ran through)
how are the desert maps going to look exactly, are there new quests, is there a chariot (and if so how does it work - is it like in wedding dance or something?), how are you going to overcome the whole vassal system that was always a big problem for non-medieval mods.

Desert maps = admittedly right now we don't have a strong scene department. Kuauik did great work but he's got too much to attend to to worry about it, Dr.Tomas is interested in doing scenes too but we could use more scene artists. I'm not sure if we'll use a custom desert texture, I don't see why not if it looks good enough.

New quests = not right now. Too much to worry about before we could get to that.

Chariots = Ritter created the chariot script before his hiatus. It works but is not without quirks that DrTomas (and anyone who might help us!) are trying to iron out. Don't want to testify to anything specific that might change, but it's proceeding along.

Vassal system = This is a trickier subject. I think that something approaching a vassal/feudal structure has actually been very common in history given the decentralized nature of most regimes. And it also works from a military perspective. In fact you could consider most of our factions to be feudal or semi-feudal. The Achaeans are, the Hittites are, the Persians are. The two who I think are explicitly non-feudal are the Egyptians and Assyrians, who from what I've understood maintained more centralized states and armies and explicitly tried to de-feudalize their forces. Yet in both cases the Pharoah or King are still the top dog who can decide who gets what fief. Short of any solid information we can assume Babylon is non-feudal too.

I suppose what we could do, speaking hypothetically, is to change the dynamic of army sizes for the centralized states. Whereas everyone else would have the vanilla system (large for king, medium for major nobles, small for minor nobles), the centralized states would have maybe 4 nobles (The King, princes, Vizier/High official) with huge and well equipped armies, and the rest being militia/piss-poor feudal conscripts.

[Roach XI the Magnificent]

About the vassals - pretty much everyone except the Assyrians and Babylonians was roughly feudal, even the later Egies - the rule as well as the gathering of armies was organized by the nomarchs, or provincial lords. The Assyrians and Babylonians had more of a Roman style army - levies of the city/heartlands themselves along with allied contingents from what were essentially protectorates, later - provinces.

[Sahran]

Appreciate the correction. We'll figure out how to better handle it, but I like the theory of the idea for Assyria and Babylonia.

[zois]

yea...... there is another problem....... all achae ""lords"" where kings with full independance...... the strongest king was the one with the most money,army,allies........that king was able to ""call to arms"" the others but it was very easy for a king to join the enemy side....

the kings where figthing each other almost all the time....... making strong aliences to destroy stronger kings (thats what happened to troy. why whould anyone go to war because someone stole the wife of the anax?) so the high king was the peacekeeper deciding wich faction he shall help. so the internall wars between the kings of the cities (basileus) where of major importance for the externall diplomacy..... i was thinking to propose to divide those kings to minor factions of 2-3 cities compared to their familly and friendship bonds that each king has with his neightbors and all of them to be in constant aliance with the anax.......... i did the recomendation but it seems hell of work to make this system stable.....

[Sahran]

yea...... there is another problem....... all achae ""lords"" where kings with full independance...... the strongest king was the one with the most money,army,allies........that king was able to ""call to arms"" the others but it was very easy for a king to join the enemy side....

the kings where figthing each other almost all the time....... making strong aliences to destroy stronger kings (thats what happened to troy. why whould anyone go to war because someone stole the wife of the anax?) so the high king was the peacekeeper deciding wich faction he shall help. so the internall wars between the kings of the cities (basileus) where of major importance for the externall diplomacy..... i was thinking to propose to divide those kings to minor factions of 2-3 cities compared to their familly and friendship bonds that each king has with his neightbors and all of them to be in constant aliance with the anax.......... i did the recomendation but it seems hell of work to make this system stable.....

Yes and no. Agamemnon was rather akin to a hegemon of classical Greece (Sparta or Athens during the Peloponnesian War) in that he did not have autocratic rule, but was the high king by the willful consent of the other kings. However as I read it that willful consent was given by all but Achilles essentially (nobody else challenged Agamemnon's claim to being the best and biggest king), and no other figures besides Achilles broke it. In other words it's an all or nothing affair - they either obey Agamemnon entirely by willful consent, or they refuse to obey him at all (Achilles). While the idea of Agamemnon being able to decide if Nestor gets a new fief or if Odysseus is kicked out of the faction isn't very appealing, the alternative is no better - unless we divide the Greeks into every single kingdom someone will have an 'unrealistic' authority over another.

Furthermore, dividing the Achaeans brings up that same problem listed above - how do you divide them? If you do so by power (Nestor, Agamemnon, Diomedes, maybe Achilles) then you run into the worse situation of kings oddly ruled by a higher-king who never had any degree of authority over them: Nestor couldn't command Odysseus, Diomedes couldn't command Idomeneus. If you do so by the historical strong-states, then you forfit the Mythological narrative: Pylos (Nestor), Mycene (Agamemnon), Thebes (Thersander), Tiryns (Maybe Diomedes). And again, same issue as above.

It's easier to suspend belief and have Agamemnon be an Anax with greater authority than to divide the Achaeans and go even further into inaccuracy and oddity by having an Anax Nestor or Diomedes who are capable of resisting Agamenmon when they never did in the Iliad. Not to mention the Trojans are even worse off since people joined Priam only by friendship rather than by willful consent. However we can't go and make every ally of troy a unique faction.

[zois]

so you are going to use agamemnon as the King of the faction and the others as vassals... and one more thing, what about naval battles and sea movement acheoi used alot the ships to do raids and sea people also raided the egyptian lands and achean ones by using ships..... ( if you have any troop tree i will be glad to have a look...)

[Sahran]

Yup, Agamemnon is the King of the Akhaioi. Priamos (well, Piyama-Radu in Luwian) of the Assuwa/Arzawa League, Muwatallis of the Nesili (Hittites), Ramesses II of Egypt, Kai Kavus I think for Persia, Nebuchanezzar II for Babylon, Sargon II for Assyria (Technically should be Sennacherib or one of the following two emperors judging from military depictions, but oh well), David for Israel, I forget who for Scythia - their mythological founder or his sons.

Two new updates:


Duckwolf2's great assyrian sword, worn by an example of an Assyrian officer/noble (Kuauik's helmet, armor, shield) - already seen the latter but it's still snazzy, top notch work.


Example of how a middle-class Kekide (Man-at-arms, or retinue of a noble) Achaean might look. Spear is Alxcruel's, helmet is Kuauik's, armor is my attempt at one interpretation (The "Poncho Armor") of the Warrior Vase. Yes, I realize the gaps in the side is a rather odd feature and seems to speak of a vulnerability. Yet visually there's an absence of side-armor on the warrior vase. In my mind it's not much different than the pectorals worn in the iron age except the Samnites and Iberians and such had thicker/larger straps to protect their flanks/shoulders.  Whether that means the author intended it or it's just stylistic is part of the question involving the warrior vase. Interpretations range from a simple bell cuirass to the poncho armor (quilted or with metal) to linen/leather/organic corselets to quilted jerkins. I plan on doing the other interpretations too, and it goes without saying before someone freaks out - yes, the Akhaioi will have plenty of bronze cuirasses once the new model is done. Granted it will be limited to the Equeta (Tier 4), Promachoi (Tier 5) and nobility. "Maybe" consider throwing one odd one in for the Kekide, but I doubt it.

Concepts I used for the poncho armor:
http://i.imgur.com/6f2Ke.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/82hrL.jpg

I'll do more unique tunics, right now just using the simple unadorned ones for ease.

[Renkoo]

That looks pretty sweet!