The Ancient Times mod - Help Wanted

[Plan Austral]

I think that the Armenians and Ethiopia should be in the game, even though Armenia used to be a persian satrapy.

[molly bloom]

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by Locutus [/SIZE

Do you mean should we the Barbarians be added as an extra civ or should the city-list simply be adapted to reflect these Ancient Mediterrean names (or something else altogether)? I would agree on the latter but don't think I would feel much for the former...

Edit: spelling (stupid Germans with their double l's and t's everywhere )

My idea was that the barbarian eruptions in the game adequately represented the steppe peoples occasional invasions of settled, more metropolitan areas, so that if you chose a representative name for the barbarians, say, the Sarmatians (who may have been the inspiration for the Greek Amazon myth) who fought the Ancient Greeks and Persians, or the Scythians or the Thracians, then this would be a reasonable refelction of the historical situation.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by molly bloom



My idea was that the barbarian eruptions in the game adequately represented the steppe peoples occasional invasions of settled, more metropolitan areas, so that if you chose a representative name for the barbarians, say, the Sarmatians (who may have been the inspiration for the Greek Amazon myth) who fought the Ancient Greeks and Persians, or the Scythians or the Thracians, then this would be a reasonable refelction of the historical situation.

I guess that would be an interesting idea, although most ancient cultures *did* refer to the peoples surrounding them as barbarians. But renaming the Barbs and/or giving them an actual citylist rather than a list of nations might be a nice idea...

[PapaLenin]

You know guys I don't have to do anything either!!!

[Umgssda]

Civs

I think the list of civilizations still needs a bit of workover.
The difficulty is, that ancient civilization often differ in time but not in place.
If you include both assyrians and babylonians they are pretty close together, and there are also a lot of other possible choices in that region, like sumerians.
On the other hand you have large regions without important civs. It's true that Gaul ist just part of the celts civilization so that the celts have a large area to control.
One may argue, that assyrians and babylonians have influenced each other, but enough to be counted as one civilization?

You have to do some major changes in history or in the game rules to make this balanced.

[Rosacrux]

Shall we carry on?

Sorry for my absence but my comp at home went out (burned out, actually) so I have access only at work and thus limited. Also, I have been doing some work over in the thread at the creation forum.

I guess we could start talking specificaly for civs, since more or less the list is (almost) final. I'll start with the Minoan civ

Minoan

Leader: King Minos
Capital Knossos

Unique Unit: An upgraded Sail unit maybe (since “Sail” or something similar shall be the second ship in the chronological line – see the thread over at “Creation” forum for the unit list we are working on) or Pentecontor (okay, that came later than the Minoan civ peak but we can’t be really accurate, can we now? )
The Cretans were also famous archers (the best of the Greek world) but that was after the Minoan civ vanished. We could give them an archer UU.

Civ traits: Commercial (that’s for sure) and maybe Religious.

Great Leaders: Now, there is a hard one. By mythological scources we know of three (yup, only three) figures of some significance that could be called “Minoan great leaders”: Two men (warriors) Idomeneas and Merianes (or Meriones) are found in “Iliad” as the leaders of the Cretan force. Also, we know of Ariadne, daughter of King Minos (mythology again) and also from the later Cretans (on the isle of Crete the Minoan civ flourished) we could add Nearchos, the admiral of Great Alexander. I hadn’t the time to dig for more heroes names, but the Minoan language has not been deciphered yet so names here are scarce.


City list

Knossos
Phaistos
Zakros
Malia
Gortys
Olus
Komos
Amnessos
Nirou
Myrtos
Arkhanes
Ierapytna
Vathypetro
Lindos
Gournia
Rithymna
Males
Rhytion
Miletos
Lycastos
Lindos
Tylissos

(more cities added)

Helephthairna
Anopolis
Glamia
Dreros
Lato
Ierapolis
Katri
Grammion
Amphimalion
Istros
Ertaea
Dragmos
Petra
Illatia
Phalaserna
Myrina
Itanos
Keratos
Panormos
Pharai

I guess that's enough, right?

[Wernazuma III]

I'm no pedantic guy, but shouldn't it be "Phaistos", "Zagros", "Gortyn" and "Mallia"

Possibly to be added:
Anemospiliai
Hagia Triada

[Rosacrux]

well...

Err... Wernazume, Hagia Triada is a 16th century (AD) location name and anemospilia is definitely of the Byzantine time. But, a couple of the names mentioned in my post are also not excactly Minoan or ancient at all (they represent the respective locations of ancient settlements, though) so we might be able to add those too.

As for the other names:

The correct names are Malia with one "l" (that's how we write it here, at least - I live 45 minutes away from Malia ) Zakros and Gortys (Gortyn or Gortyna is the name of the same place in modern Greek). As for Faistos vs Phaistos... the grammar is right in both, it's just a matter of style

[Locutus]

Well, I had almost given up on this thread already, good to see it ain't quite dead yet...

As for Minoan city names, exact spelling is often a matter of taste, although most people are most familiar with and therefore prefer the Romanized spelling (Gortyn instead of Gortys, etc). Personally I prefer native names and ways of spellings but in some cases that can be difficult (different alphabet, native names unknown, etc), but that's really a personal taste.
However, I must object to Faistos. It's extremely unusual to translate the greek phi with an f, 99.9% of the time anything Greek that even vaguely resembles a phi is written as ph, I think that would be the best thing here as well. Whether you use Phaistos or Phaestus or whatever doesn't really matter to me (although I'd prefer Phaistos), but Faistos is horribly ugly and looks quite amateurish to me, quite frankly...
Anyway, here is a good site with Cretean city names, most of which are Minoan I think.

I don't have time now but later today I'll post a list of 30 odd Etruscan city names (and possibly names for some other civs).

[Rosacrux]

Oh, well... Phaistos

Alright, alright, I changed it to Phaistos, even though I am strongly against the Ph-ing of the Greek "ö" (dunno if it appers on your screan, it probably doesn't). Why am I against it? Well, because the latin "F" is the Greek "phi", so I hate to see it as an odd bigram "ph".

But since you all find it so ugly... there you have it! Phaistos.

I added 23 more cities of ancient Crete to the list. They are taken from the site Locutus provided but many of them are post-Minoan settlements (as I said, I know because I live on Crete and I have more than just a vague interest in history ) or - in most cases - post minoan names of settlements that are inhabited for the past 4000 years.

Since there is a lack of actual names of significant Minoan settlements (and since Homer wasn't kind enough to mention all the "100 cities of Crete" in his Iliad) we should use those.

And... no ugly "f"s this time Locutus. Amateurish? Gee, thanks

[Locutus]

You're welcome, Rosacrux
Actually, while in Roman does not a distinction, English, Dutch, German and other modern languages *do* make a difference between f and phi. It's the same way Dutch and German use y for 'foreign' words (English, French, Greek, Latin) and ei or (in Dutch) ij for native words. No real reason for it, but that's just the way it is (and should be)...

As promised I posted the Etruscan city list below (I'll see if I have time to find more later).

And below that there is a list with 50 Egyptian city names (and if you need it there's more where that came from). Such a list is easy to make if you want to use the 'popular' city names (mostly Greek, some Arab), but if you want to make it really good (IMHO), you should use actual native Egyptian names, so I added those as well in brackets (when known and different from popular):

Etruscan cities

------------------

Veii			- most powerfull of League cities (Etruscan name unknown)

Tarchna			- one of the oldest of the League cities (Roman name: Tarquinii)

Clevsin			- one of the oldest of the League cities (Roman name: Clusium)

Velch			- important member of the League (Roman name: Vulci)

Caisra			- important League trade city, principal port city (Roman name: Caere)

Fufluna			- League city directly on coast and near mines (Roman name: Populonia)

Velathri		- one of the wealthiest of the League cities (Roman name: Volaterrae)

Velzna			- member of League, important religous site (Roman name: Volsinii)

Arretium		- important inland League city (Etruscan name unknown)

Phersna			- League city, Umbrian-Etrusk 'hybrid' (Roman name: Perusia)

Vetluna			- member of the League (Roman name: Vetulonia)

Curtun			- member of the League (Roman name: Corito)

Rusellae		- likely a member of the League, little known about it (Roman name: Rosella)

Ruma			- Etruscan-ruled city on edge of homeland (Roman name: Roma)

Capeva Volturnum	- 'semi=League' Etrucscan city (Roman name: Capua)

Ravna			- city in Etruscan territory (Roman name: Ravenna)

Spina			- 'semi=League' Etrucscan city (Etruscan name unknown)

Adria			- 'semi=League' Etrucscan city (Roman name: Adrina)

Kisry			- port of Caisra

Aleria			- Etruscan colony on Sardinia

Graviscae		- city in/near Etruscan homeland

Faesulae		- city in northern Etruscan territory (Etruscan name unknown)

Felsna			- city in northern Etruscan territory (Roman name: Bononia)

Placentia		- city in northern Etruscan territory (Etruscan name unknown)

Parma			- city in northern Etruscan territory (Etruscan name unknown)

Mantua			- city in northern Etruscan terrory (Etruscan name unknown)

Antium			- city in southern Etruscan terrory (Etruscan name unknown)

Pisaurum		- city in southern Etruscan terrory (Etruscan name unknown)

Privernum		- city in southern Etruscan terrory (Etruscan name unknown)

Pontecagnano		- city in southern Etruscan terrory (Etruscan name unknown)

Pompeii			- city in southern Etruscan terrory (Etruscan name unknown)

Herculaneum		- city in southern Etruscan terrory (Etruscan name unknown)









Egyptian cities

------------------

Thebes (Waset)			- New Kingdom Capital, main temple of Amon

Memphis	(Men-Nefer)		- Often Old/Middle Kingdom Capital, main temple of Ptah

Heliopolis (Iunu)		- Very important city, main temple of Re

Abydos (Abtu)			- Very important religious site, later main temple of Osiris

Busiris	(Djedu)			- Very important city & religious site, temple of Osiris, aka Abusir

Panopolis (Akhmim)		- Very important city and religious site, temple of Min

Elephantine (Adu)		- Very important city, on border with Nubia, military base

Hieraconpolis (Nekhen)		- Capital of Upper Egypt in predynastic times

Buto (Per-Wadjet)		- Capital of Lower Egypt in predynastic times

This (Tjeny)			- Capital of 1st/2nd dynasty, aka Thinis & Girga

Pi-Ramesses			- Capital of Hyksos, built on top of Avaris

Heracleopolis (Henen-Nesut)	- Capital of 9th/10th dynasty, very old city, main temple of Herishef

Lisht (Itjtawy)			- Capital of 12th dynasty

Akhet-Aten			- Capital of 18th dynasty (Akhet-aten, Nefertiti), aka el-Amarna

Avaris (Harawet)		- Capital of 20th dynasty (Ramesses), later rebuilt as Pi-Ramesses

Tanis (Suan)			- Capital in 21st/22nd dynasty, important trade city

Bubastis (Per-Bastet)		- Capital of 22nd dynasty (Libyan), main temple of Bast

Leontopolis (Taremu)		- Capital of 23rd dynasty

Sais (Sai)			- Capital of 24th/26th/28th dynasty

Mendes (Per-Djedet)		- Capital of 29th dynasty, Orisis centre

Sebennytos (Tjebnutjer)		- Capital of 30th dynasty, hometown of Manetho

Karnak (Ipet-Isut)		- Important religious site, northern half of Thebes

Luxor (Ipet-Resyt)		- Valley of the Kings, southern half of Thebes

Giza (Rostau)			- Site of Great Pyramids

Coptos (Gebtu)			- centre for the Upper Egyptian Red Sea trade through Wadi Hammamat

Oryx				- better known as Beni Hassan (Oryx is the nome, not the city)

Philae (P-aaleq)		- Important (very) late New Kingdom religious site

Athribis (Hut-Heryib)		- Temple of Horus, important city in Roman times

Syene (Swentet)			- Twin city of Elephantine but less important, aka Aswan

Edfu (Djeba)			- Old Kingdom mastabas, temple of Horus, aka Apollinopolis Magna

Dashur				- Important pyramid site, Bent & Red Pyramids site (Egyptian name unknown)

Saqqara				- Important pyramid site, site of Steppe Pyramid (Egyptian name unknown)

Pelusium (Senu)			- Militarily very important city (basis for Asiatic campaigns)

Alexandria (Raqote)		- Ptolemeic Capital, one of the greatest cities of the ancient world

Canopus (Kahi-Nub)		- Important port city on Nile Delta, luxury centre

Crocodilopolis (She-Resy)	- Founded by Menes, temple of Sobek, capital of Lower laurel nome

Armant (Iuny)			- Capital of Sceptre nome, main temple of Montu, aka Hermonthis

Hermopolis Magna (Khemenu)	- Important city & religious site, temple of Toth, capital of Hare nome

Letopolis (Sekhem)		- Important city, cult of Hert/Isis and Horus

Ombos (Nubt)			- Temple of Seth, aka Naqada/Tukh

Dendera (Iunet)			- Site of Hathor's main temple, aka Tentyra

Abu Simbel (Meha)		- Location of famous tempels built by Ramesses II

Diospolis Parva (Hut-Sekhem)	- Cult centre of Bat, aka Hiw

Pithom (Pa-Tum)			- Capital of East Harpoon nome, founded by Ramesses II

Kahun (Hotep-Senusret)		- Location of pyramid plus town of Pyramid builders

Lykopolis/Asyut (Sauty)	- Capital of Upper pomegranate tree nome, important in 11th dynasty

Esna (Iunyt)			- Ptolemeic era religious site, main temple of Khnum and Neith

El-Kab (Nekhbet)		- Capital of Rural nome, cult centre of Nekhbet, home of the 18th dynasty

Hermopolis (Bakh)		- Capital of the Hare nome, foremost cult centre of Thoth

Hermopolis Parva (Timinhor)	- Capital of West nome before Alexandria

[Rosacrux]

Nubian

Alrigh, one more civilization in hand. I am not an expert on African civs so bear with my minor errors (or even greater ones) when I try to dig into the Nubian civ.

Well, as far as I know, maybe Kush would be a better name for the civ, but you guys maybe are more familiar with them so we can discuss it.

Kush or Nubian

Leader: It should probably be Piye (better known as Piankhy) (800-716 BCE according to most estimations) who was among other things, the conqueror of Egypt, the founder of the 25th Pharaoh dynasty and a great military leader as well. Another candidate could be Aserkhamen or Piye’s brother Shabaka, who’s also noted in the Old Testament. Or the first of the Meroe period, Arakakamani. The ones not used for leader, should make it into great leaders. Also, other great leaders of the Ku****es: Quore Nakatamani, Kandake Amanitore, Tantamani.

Traits: Commercial and …what? They were commercial for sure. Expansionistic they were not. Religious would maybe describe them? I don’t think militaristic. Definitely not scientific. Well, suggestions?

Unique Unit As I said, Nubian history is not my strongest point, so I really can’t think of a fitting UU. The only one I could think would be a beefed-up Light Cavalry, as they provided Carthago and later the Hellenistic kingdoms with fine Cavalry troops, with no armor but fast and efficient (Hannibal used them a lot).

Capital City
Napata or Meroe

Cities
Napata
Meroe
Dakka
Mahraqua
Siala
Korosko
Toshka
Balana
Faras
Qustol
Faras
Buhen
Mirgissa
Semna
Amra
Sai
Soleb
Kerma
Debba
Gebel Barkal
Kurgus

btw Locutus, very professional list on Egypt. Should we change the original with those?

[Umgssda]

There are a lot of egyptian cities known today, so one is able to choose among them.
I would drop out some of the cities Locutus mentioned:
The Greek cities, like Alexandria, one could describe it, a a greek foundation which got absorbed by the overwhelming egyptian culture. Isn't that already post dynastial?
Saqqara: as far as I know, it was only a burial site for Memphis.
Giza: I don't know about this, maybe also just a burial site?

How about Asyut? I think it was an important city during all the three kingdoms

[Wernazuma III]

Rusellae Thought this IS the roman spelling. Etruscan name unknown AFAIK

Ravna city in Etruscan territory (Hardly, maybe etruscan presence in their north expansion, don't know)
Adria Isn't Atria more correct?

[Locutus]

Re: Nubian

Since Alexandria it was such an incredibly important city I think it's worth mentioning. I put it near the bottom of the list because it was indeed more a Greek-Egyptian hybrid than a truly Egyptian city. I guess you could also leave it out if you'd prefer that. Asyut is already there (Lykopolis), I left the 'aka part' out of the description because it was too long already (the length of the page get's screwed up if you use pre-tags combined with long sentences). Saqqara and Giza were extremely important religous sites; people actually lived there to take care of the temples and the graves and during construction activities entire towns were erected to house the labourers. So personally I think they qualify as seperate cities, although one could indeed agrue about that

Originally posted by Rosacrux
Well, as far as I know, maybe Kush would be a better name for the civ, but you guys maybe are more familiar with them so we can discuss it.

Usually the names are used as synonyms but strictly speaking Kush ought to refer to the Napata kingdom only while Nubia refers to pretty much all kingdoms in what is now Sudan (Kerma, Meroe and several other, less important, ones). So if you must be accurate, it just depends on how much you want to cover...

It should probably be Piye (better known as Piankhy) (800-716 BCE according to most estimations) who was among other things, the conqueror of Egypt, the founder of the 25th Pharaoh dynasty and a great military leader as well. Another candidate could be Aserkhamen or Piye’s brother Shabaka, who’s also noted in the Old Testament. Or the first of the Meroe period, Arakakamani. The ones not used for leader, should make it into great leaders. Also, other great leaders of the Ku****es: Quore Nakatamani, Kandake Amanitore, Tantamani.

You're confusing Shabaka with Taharqa, it is him who is mentioned in the Bible (as Tirhakah) and he's often mentioned as the greatest of the 25th dynasty kings (he was both a great warrior and a great builder). Taharqa would indeed be a good competitor for Piye, the rest is less important. Personally I like Taharqa but I would agree with Piye as leader for the Nubians/Ku****es as well. Minor nitpick: Shabaka was the founder of the 25th dynasty, not Piye. Piye conquered Egypt but ruled from Napata; Shabaka moved the capital to Thebes and was the first to rule as Egyptian Pharaoh.

Traits: Commercial and …what? They were commercial for sure. Expansionistic they were not. Religious would maybe describe them? I don’t think militaristic. Definitely not scientific. Well, suggestions?[/quote]
Well, agriculture would be nice but failing that industrious would be applicable. Nubians built many great pyramids and temples and particularly Meroe (like the rest of (West) Africa) was quite famous for it's skill in iron production. I guess religous would work too, but that fits almost every ancient civilization to some extend...

Unique Unit As I said, Nubian history is not my strongest point, so I really can’t think of a fitting UU. The only one I could think would be a beefed-up Light Cavalry, as they provided Carthago and later the Hellenistic kingdoms with fine Cavalry troops, with no armor but fast and efficient (Hannibal used them a lot).[/quote]
Hmm, not sure about this... Nubian archers were frequently used as mercenaries by the Egyptians, for later times cavalry or camelry would also qualify. A tribe of Nubian nomads, the Medjay, were used as mercenaries by the Egyptians because they were such fearsome warriors, later on they were employed as sort of a police force.
Personally I think I'd prefer Nubian Bowmen as UU, maybe rename them Medjay but keep them as archery unit. Non-archery units would certainly not be unsuitable though...

Capital City
Napata or Meroe

Hmm, maybe you should consider Kerma too? It was a pretty important city and their first capital. All three would be a good choice though...

Cities
Napata
Meroe
Dakka
Mahraqua
Siala
Korosko
Toshka
Balana
Faras
Qustol
Faras
Buhen
Mirgissa
Semna
Amra
Sai
Soleb
Kerma
Debba
Gebel Barkal
Kurgus

Well, it's not easy to make a Nubian list but this looks pretty good. One question though (minor issue, but still): Why is Kerma so low on the list? It's one of the oldest Nubian citie and with that one of the oldest cities in the world. Gotta be worth something (aside from the fact that it was their first capital)...
Additions:
Nuri
el-Kurru
Dongola

(might have more later)

btw Locutus, very professional list on Egypt. Should we change the original with those?

Well, personally I'd love to see that but I can see how others might prefer to keep their familiar Greek/Arab names...