I just saw 300 and it is a sweet movie.

I dont know how to mod or anything but I think it would be cool to do a scenario where the persians are invading the greeks and you can either choose to crush them as Xerxes or defend them as Leonidas.

While the movie is fantastic, I don't know about it's applications in a CIV format... Here, it is difficult to represent the sheer advantages that the Spartans possessed. Beyond the +50% defense bonus of hills, it is almost impossible to recreate the defensive effect that the Spartans received from terrain, and the amount that Persian units would have to be dulled down in order to give the 300 a chance would immense. If you have answers to this, please tell me, I am willing to do Python if it is necessary and it seems like this mod will be serious enough.

When the Rise of Persia mod comes to fruition (it's stuck on some problem that bombs the game) that will likely be the natural place to make this scenario from.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=183761&page=6

well yeah i didnt mean just the one battle of thermopylae but it could be a civ vs civ and just make the persians massive.

then give the greeks (spartans) buffed up hoplites. I say greeks since the persians were conquering all of greece

The movie sadly does not play yet in germany, but i watched the trailer (about 15 times now ;) ) and it looks too cool (especially the colours!!!). So if you get a cool Scenario up and running, worth playing, i could recreate some units ;) like the immortals from the mod and the spartans :)
But first you will have to make the scenario worth the time unit creation needs.

There's one for Civ 3.

While the movie is fantastic, I don't know about it's applications in a CIV format... Here, it is difficult to represent the sheer advantages that the Spartans possessed. Beyond the +50% defense bonus of hills, it is almost impossible to recreate the defensive effect that the Spartans received from terrain.

Hmmm... actually you can give the Greeks all the terrain bonus you want... 100%, 200%, 500%.... You could also limit movement points for Persians on the Thermopylae terrain, to simulate the difficulty of getting through the narrow pass.

You'd also have to add a pass through Malis, which is how the Persians ultimately attacked the Spartans from behind. Maybe "discovering" that secret mountain pass could be researched.

Additionally, you'd have to limit Persian stacking somehow (don't know if this can be done in XML) or else give the Greeks units a collateral damage attack + that would actually be easy.

As far as the overall structure of the scenario, I would have a large number of Greek cities as independent players. The challenge is for the Greek player to forge a large enough alliance to create the necessary forces to hold the Persians at Thermopylae, either by creating vassals, conquering the other cities outright, or by getting them to form mutual defense pacts. The challenge would be to accomplish this while Xerxes' army is slowly advancing around the perimeter of the Aegean Basin...

I think it would be incredibly difficult to accurately model since Civ4 is unable to represent the importance of navies. Salamis was what won it for the Greeks.

I think it would be incredibly difficult to accurately model since Civ4 is unable to represent the importance of navies. Salamis was what won it for the Greeks.

Not at Thermopylae! ... and of course the final, decisive battle was a massive infantry/cavalry battle at Plataea...

Having said that, it seems to me the way to get better naval battles for something like Salamis, or the earlier naval battle at Artemesium, would be to limit or eliminate stacking for ships, so you get the physical dynamic of the huge Persian fleet backed up in a bottleneck... wonder if that could be done...

Not at Thermopylae! ... and of course the final, decisive battle was a massive infantry/cavalry battle at Plataea...

Having said that, it seems to me the way to get better naval battles for something like Salamis, or the earlier naval battle at Artemesium, would be to limit or eliminate stacking for ships, so you get the physical dynamic of the huge Persian fleet backed up in a bottleneck... wonder if that could be done...
Well I was assuming that you would do a scenario for the whole war, not just the battle of Thermopylae.

You're right that Plataea was the final battle of the war in Greece, but it was not by any stretch the decisive turning point that Salamis was. The defeat at Salamis caused Xerxes to retreat back to his territory, leaving a smaller detachment of troops in Greece behind. They were then defeated at Plataea.

Um, the Persian army at Plataea was not a small detachment. It was 300,000 men, including 10,000 superb Persian heavy cav led by Xerxes' son-in-law, a seasoned commander, Mardonius. The Persians outnumbered the Greeks by 3-to-1... and the Greeks had no cavalry at all.

People do speak of Salamis as though it were the last battle of the war and I'm not sure why. Maybe because Athenian leaders capture our imagination more than Spartan or Theban leaders do. But in actuality Plataea was the crowning achievement of the Greek Alliance.

In any event, we were discussing ways to do a Thermopylae scenario, "300," which would occur at the beginning of the war and wouldn't require meeting the requirements of the subsequent battles.

Well I disagree with you, but its really not important.

Good luck with the mod :)

somebody should try this

I'd really love to see someone do this well. I just saw the movie last night (New York) and I'm itching to repell some Persians in the name of Sparta lol.

Please don't make it for warlords only.

I would like to see this, but my idea is to just add Leonidas as a Greek leader and have Spartans as a UU, and then with Persia change Xerxes to look like how he looks in 300, as well as making their immortals look like they do in 300.