Extra Pack Finalization Project (Part1)

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Bad Ax

Arabs:
The capital should probably be Mecca anyway, though Baghdad was really the more influential city in a commercial sense.

This would be akin to Spain having Rome as its capital, or England/Britain having Canterbury; the capital should reflect the political continuity, and as such, I believe you have a choice of Damascus or Baghdad or Cordoba or Cairo, with my preferences being for Baghdad, as having a longer and earlier pedigree (though not earlier than Damascus).
I believe that the shunned form of government should be democracy; unfortunately through a combination of factors, few if any of the 'new' Arab states have enjoyed a fully functioning democracy. Some are quasi-democratic republics, some authoritarian absolutist monarchies, some a combination of socialist and absolutist (Libya) and others just outright dictatorships, along semi-tribal lines (Iraq).

Re:Mamelukes-

The Mamelukes Rise to Power

' The latter Sultans of the Ayyubid dynasty formed a guard of elite fighter slaves that were known as Mamelukes. Most of these Mamelukes were of Turkish, Afghan or Circassian origins. Their original countries were stricken by the waves of Mongol invaders who inflicted chaos and turmoil on the Muslim population. Much of the lost children were caught by slave traders. The Ayyubid sultans bought many of these children, and formed from them an elite, well-trained, well-educated force. When the power of the Ayyubid dynasty waned, one of those Mamelukes rose to power and assumed the Sultanate of Egypt and Syria. The name of the first Mameluke Sultan was Sayf al-Din Qutuz . The moment he assumed power, he was confronted by the Mongol hordes who destroyed the Islamic Caliphate in Baghdad, massacred the bulk of its Muslim population and moved to subdue the Syrian towns of Aleppo, Homs and Damascus. '

This is why I have difficulty with the Mamelukes being the Arab unique unit; they are of differing ethnic origins in the main, and for me it would be rather like having the Gurkha or the Sikh as the English/British fighting unit. If you consider the desert origins of the Arabs, the beast that symbolizes desert power is the camel. A useful beast of burden, capable of travelling long distances on little water, edible in an emergency, supplying milk...couple it with a well-armed motivated Arab soldier, and you have a winning combination,as the Byzantine and Sassanid empires discovered.

[Wernazuma III]

The italian CSA should be Opportunistic; before being destroyed they get all their cities back and ally with the winner...


Bad Ax: The problem with Colomo/Colon/Columbus etc. is that he ended up as a complete loser. He didn't conquer much, got no gold, lost therefore his ranks and finally Vespucci robbed him the honor of name-bearer for america... that, along with the fact that he was originally italian doesn't make him a good leader for the spanish. I think the Conquistador is good as it is (note to spanish friends: you can propose at least specifics for the Tercio. the name then would still be ignorant "Conquistador" but at least it would be a tercio in effect)

about mongols: i don't think it's ever a good idea to make despotism the favorite gov. that would probably make a civ fall behind later on.

about arabs: I'll stick to Mecca as capital although I think Baghdad would make a better one. But if we want correct starting locations, we'd have to put it in the same tile as Babylon, that wouldn't be good. Damascus is a choice we'd have to test out, yet I still think that would be also too close. Cairo or Cordoba aren't good because Spain and Egypt as starting locations for arabs sounds weird, beside the fact that there too are other civs starting nearby.
They definitely shun Democracy

incans: yes, the incan messagers were quite unique. yet, we already have the jaguar warrior as a 1.1.2 unit and the runners were no military unit at all. I think the UU we have is fine in the end, it's different from aztec, maya and zulu and yet gives some flair for incas...


About Mameluks: I'll rename the Mameluk to Camel Rider. After all, it's probably more "general" for arabs and still can be recognized as arab unit.

[HolyWarrior]

Might I suggest the Hashishim, or Assassin, as the UU for the Arabs. This would function as a fast swordsman. There are already attack and defense swordsmen UUs, as the Immortals and Legionaires, respectively. The Hashishim were feared during the Crusades, so much that they became part of our language.

[LoD]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
LoD: I think, the Polish Civ has been discussed at length now, so I suppose, you now have a more or less "definitive version" already. If so, just send me a pm or mail me. The polish Civ will be in part 4 of the finalization project, so there is still time to discuss it in another own thread if you think that will still bring up good new ideas.

As a matter of fact, I have most of the data collected. I will e-mail everything to you once I'm done. If you want to keep informed about the progress of data gathering see this page (hey, I know it's in Polish, but most of the text is pretty much self explanatory ).

[Wernazuma III]

404-strona nje znaleziona

Did you type the link correctly?

[LoD]

I didn't, in fact. It has been edited now.

[Maophoria]

Arab: I think that the Mameluks should be the Arab UU. Camel rider in my mind is a very limited and often romanticized unit.

Instead of Mekkah as the capital, maybe Cairo could be used, although I would prefer Bagdad.

As for the Inca, am not sure what unit would be their best UU unit. I know that they had archers, which were considered their elite unit, but I don't know what they were called. Also you might want to move cities like Ollayantambo and Pisac up the line, so they are built sooner, as they are in the Inca heartland. Also you forgot important Inca cities like Vitcos and Vilcambra which are major Inca cities.

[Harlan]

A few thoughts.

I'd vote for Camel Rider over Mameluke any day. A big reason being that the Mamelukes were not in fact Arabs at all, but mercenaries or slaves from the steppes. It would be like having Swiss Halberdiers as the Italian UU. Plus having the Camel Rider is very interesting - its nice to have cavalry type units that don't require the Horse resource.

Regarding Terico vs. Conquistador, what about a third option, such as a ship? Spanish Galleons are just as well known and evocative as Conquistadors. One possibility, ditching the regular unit Caravel from the game, and replacing it with something better like Cog or Galley (as opposed to the earlier Trireme), and then having the Caravel as the Spanish UU, to give them a jump on naval exploration. Caravels only had a small window of use in real world history, which is okay for a UU, but bad for a general unit.

Makkah should definitely be the Arab capital. For starters, it only makes sense to have the Arab capital actually be in Arabia! Think of the thousands of years prior to the 600s AD. Other places, like Cairo or Baghdad, bump into other civs too closely, if you're playing on an earth map. Makkah was the original capital for the Muslims. True, it moved, but you could argue for Constantinople instead of Rome for the Romans if you go that way. Both are important, but I'd prefer original capital over longest capital if I had to chose between the two criterion.

Horse Rider is a good choice for the Mongols. I would advocate a rather wierd thing for them though, since they were such an unusal civ. Give them an extra-powerful unit, but make up for it by giving them only one civ attribute - militaristic - instead of two. As for the extra unit power, Horse Riders should have a movement of 4. They could outrun anything, and disengage from any battle they wanted. That would make the Mongols a really interesting and fun civ to play.

(I would argue a similar thing for the Vikings, the other "barbarian" civ - an extra powerful unit, but only the Militaristic attribute)

Who's making the graphics for all the UU's, anyways? I imagine most of them could be pinched from Age of Empires or Age of Kings, or CTP1/2, in the same way that a Slinger unit is being made right now from Age of Empires graphics. Is anyone working on that?

[gnomos]

Ummm, camel rider doesn't sound too hot. I don't think the Moors who occupied Spain used camels. There's a reason there's a breed of horses called Arabians.....

As for stats, speed 3 is immensely powerful, I can't see also giving the unit an attack of 5. I think 4/1/3 is more appropriate.

The real problem is, who exactly are the "arabs", and which period are you trying to represent, ancient or middle ages? The stats you give for the UU indicate a middle ages cavalry type unit.

This thread is actually proving a bit educational, I've been doing some browsing on web sites. I found that the Mamlukes were more or less created by Salah al-Din ("Saladin"), around 1200 AD, during the time he ruled in Egypt. They were slaves, sort of, Turkish mercenaries, sort of. However, they were allowed to own property, which seems similar to the Roman practice of allowing slaves to earn and keep their own money, possibly even buying their own freedom.

There have been a great many civilizations in the middle east though, such as the Arameans, centered on Damascus. Their language was Aramaic, which persisted and spread through the region from 1200 BC up to around 700 AD, despite being conquered and sort of assimilated by the Assyrians around 700 BC. In fact, Aramaic was designated the official language of the persian empire around 500 BC, as by then it had become almost universally the language of commerce in the region.

[molly bloom]

Islam's capital: first, Medina, then Damascus, then, Baghdad. Not Makkah- Abu Bakr, Mohammed's successor, a rightly guided Caliph, ruled from Medina, as did Umar, Uthman and Ali.

Camels:

'Bruce Ingham - Technicalities and Terminology of Raiding and Warfare as Revealed by Bedouin Oral Narrative

These thoughts result from an examination of stories of raiding and warfare from various bedouin sources, but mainly from the Al Zafir, Al Murrah and Rwalah. These texts make an interesting source of vocabulary and reveal something of the nature of desert warfare and military tactics. The suwalif 'stories' mention three types of aggressive activity against other tribes. These are hanshalah 'horse or camel stealing on foot', ghazu 'camel raiding' and harb 'military attack, war'. '

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~neareast/middle.htm

[molly bloom]

More on camels, desert warfare and Arabs:

Sir John Glubb

'The key to all the early operations, against Persia and against Syria alike, is that the Persians and Byzantines could not move in the desert, being mounted on horses. The Muslims were like a sea-power, cruising offshore in their ships, whereas the Persians and Byzantines alike could only take up positions on the shore (that is, the cultivated area) unable to launch out to "sea" and engage the enemy in his own desert element. Similarly the Arabs, like the Norse or Danish pirates who raided England, were at first afraid to move inland far from their "ships." Raiding the areas on the "shores" of the desert, they hastened back to their own element when danger threatened.'

(The Great Arab Conquests, 1963)

and

Joel Carmichael

'There is a remarkable resemblance between the strategy of the Bedouin and that of the modern sea power. Viewed from the vantage point of nomads, the desert, which only they could make use of, was like a vast ocean on which they controlled the only vessels. The Bedouin could use it for supplies and communications - and as a haven when defeated. They could appear from its depths whenever they wished and slip back again at will. This gave them enormous mobility and resilience, as long as they were moving against sedentary communities .'

(Shaping of the Arabs, 1967)

The armies that conquered the Persian Empire and Eastern Roman Empire:

'For more than a century Arab soldiers fought with primitive weapons -- the personal sword, dagger, lance -- and wore no defensive armor or helmets. These conquering forces had no staff organization, no siegecraft capabilities, and no logistics trains. Tactics were almost nonexistent as these armies relied upon small hit-and-run raids, the razzias, and ambushes as their primary tactical maneuvers. Mobility was limited as most of the army moved on foot and fought as infantry accompanied by small contingents of camel cavalry. Even their size was small. The force that attacked and subdued Egypt (640-642) numbered no more than 4,000 men.
Arab military development was strongly influenced by experience and contact with other military cultures, most particularly by their wars with the Byzantines and Persians. Khaild Ibn al-Walid created dense infantry formations after the Byzantine pattern. These new formations were organized into archer, infantry, and lance cavalry units and placed under the command of proven combat leaders who replaced the tribal and clan chiefs. He created the first Arab quartermaster corp, and even organized the women to carry knives and short swords to be used for stripping and dispatching the enemy wounded.'

The importance of the camel:

Horses were rare in Arabia (although not unknown), and the early Arab armies relied upon corps of special racing camels for transport and cavalry. The wars with the Persians brought the Arabs into contact with the horse, and the warriors of Allah were quick to grasp the importance of the horse as a military asset. Since Arab horses were brought into regular contact with their camel corps, the smell of the camel had no effect on them. The presence of camel cavalry, however, often spooked the horses of the enemy and weakened the opponent's force.'

The Muslim soldier:

'By the 10th century, the chronicler al-Tabari recorded that the Arab warrior carried the following items of equipment: mail armor, breastplate, helmet, leg and arm guards, complete horse armor, small shield, lance, sword, mace, battle axe, bow case with two bows, a quiver of 30 arrows, and two spare bow strings. Added to this military capability was now a first-rate siegecraft capability. In equipment and tactics, the armies of Islam had become indistinguishable from the armies of Byzantium.'

https://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr0016.htm

If the Arab Civ begins at Medina, or Baghdad, or Damascus. a desert U.U., perhaps with extra movement, would be an advantage. The defeat of Marcus Crassus at Carrhae was in part due also to the existence of a well-supplied camel train, loaded up with large amounts of stones for slingers and arrows.

I hope I have proved the case for a camel U.U. now- it's also worth bearing in mind that the camel can be eaten (it tastes a lot better than horse, believe me) its milk does not curdle, and it does of course have the advantage of surviving on little water and scrubby vegetation.

[datakodin]

Re: Extra Pack Finalization Project (Part1)

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
The Mongols
Cities:
Choybalsan

Horloogiyn Choybalsan was the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Mongolian People's Republic. It is a little funny to see his name in Mongolia under Gengiz.

Certainly, one Mongolian city is now named after Choybalsan. Until 1941, that city was named Bayan Tumen (sp?) (and until 1921 - St.Beyse (sp?) ).

And what about Ulaan-Baator, the recent capital of Mongolia? Yes, Ulaan-Baator means "red warrior" however it is the country's capital now. Why not to include it in the list?

[Wernazuma III]

molly: I didn't know that the seat of the first Caliphs was Medina. That makes them No.1 choice for capital then. I'll change it in the list


datakodin: interesting fact I'll change Choybalsan to Bayan Tumen. Ulan-Bataar is not in the list? Must have been lost by accident.

[Bad Ax]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
about arabs:

They definitely shun Democracy

My point is that some Arab nations are at least *trying* for Democratic governments in 3 nations. So it seems that they definitely aren't in the business of shunning that governmental system. Communism, on the other hand, is a system that hasn't even been attempted in the region, and it won't be because its enforced secularism is antithetical to Arabian mores. Democracy, with its tendency to foster commercial development and materialism, at least has a shot. That's my justification. If someone can actually make an argument instead of just reiterating the statement "Arabs shun Democracy", I'd really appreciate it.

[Wernazuma III]

Which government we decide to be shunned by a certain civ obviously doesn't necessarily mean that they NEVER tried to establish the government. For example the french shunned gov. is monarchy. The french had hundreds of years of Monarchy! It was simply chosen because of the deep impact of the french revolution. For the arabs: Some democratic tries and "first steps" in a few parts of a largely despotic arab world is not enough to make them shun any other gov.