Preview of Hellenistic Kingdoms

[Hrafnkell]

The great Alexander is dead in Babylon at the age of 32, King of Macedon and Lord of Asia by right of the spear. His friends asked, "To whom do you leave the kingdom?" His last words were, "To the strongest." Can you defeat your rivals and reunite Alexander's empire under your strong hand? Or will you settle for carving out a place to establish your own dynasty? Are you the strongest?

This is a preview of my Hellenistic Kingdoms mod, which covers the period from Alexander's death in 323 to 146 BCE. The map is rather large, at 250x150. I have made every effort to make it accurate for the Hellenistic period; some areas that are desert now were not desert then, for example, northwestern Persia. I have distorted the map a bit in order to make Greece and the Levantine coast (the two biggest battlegrounds) big enough to represent the major cities and leagues and the important terrain. Every city is a victory objective and I have included Alexander's Corpse as a special treat to fight over.

Let me know what you think. I've about got it all set up and am about to start playtesting. I'm hoping to have a version posted for further playtesting by the end of the month. For now I'd like to generate some pre-game feedback.

There are 31 races. This is the lineup at present (notes as to my rationale are found in the second post):

Macedonian: (With starting satrapy)

Ptolemaios (Egypt)
Seleukos (Babylon)
Antigonos (Phrygia)
Antipatros (Macedon)
Peithon (Media)
Eumenes (Cappadocia)
Stasanor (Bactria)
Krateros (Cilicia)
Lysimachos (Thrace)
The Regency (including all other Macedonian satrapies)

Greek:
Athens (the short-lived Hellenic League of the Lamian War)
Aetolian League
Achaean League
Sparta
Pergamum
Rhodes
Bosporan Kingdom

Others:

Persia (Media Atropatene and Cappadocia)
Armenia
Pontus
Paphlagonia (incorporating also Bithynia)
Skythians
Mauryans
Illyrians
Epiros
Thrace
Nabataeans

Later Entry:
Rome
Parthia
Kushans
Galatians

(Some designer's notes on next post)

[Hrafnkell]

I have added Pergamum to the starting races because Anatolia would be too crowded to introduce a new race by their historical entry time (281 BCE). I excluded Perdikkas because to include him would be to exclude Seleukos, and that was unthinkable; so I have assigned Perdikkas' satrapy of Babylon to Seleukos instead and taken the old regent right out of the game. Eumenes, the regency's reliable (and brilliant) Greek general I have made a faction unto himself because he was never able to count on the cooperation of the supposedly loyal satraps of the regency.

I included Stasanor in Bactria as a counterweight to fill what would otherwise be a vacuum (and to preclude having to enter Bactria as yet another new race circa 250 BCE). Peithon I included because of the dramatic role he played in the wars of Antigonos and Eumenes, leaving Peukestas, satrap of Persia out because his role was largely negligible.

The Regency accounts for all the neutral satrapies, since I wanted players to have to fight to build their empires, not just expand into empty areas. I have given the Regency a low aggression and few troops to compensate for its size. I did not want it to have much power unto itself but as I said, to simply fill the void. It never really stood much of a chance to keep the empire united in the face of the aggression of the various generals. The Regency also represents the various independent Greek city states, such as Herakleia Pontika, Apollonia, Epidamnos, etc.

Because of the 31 race limitation, I combined Ariarathes in Cappadokia and Atropates in Media Minor into one faction, a sort of Persian Empire Remnant. I made Armenia a separate faction because it was the most aggressive of the three former Persian satrapies and separating it out keeps the Persian faction from being too powerful. Pontus I included as a foil in the north though it did not achieve its greatest extent until the period after the period covered by this mod.

I included the Aetolian League as well, though historically it did not come into existence until later; the limits of the Civ3 engine forced a few compromises. The same holds true for the Achaean League.

Starting forces are based on DBA armies with a few minor changes to make them more historically accurate; for instance, the earliest Ptolemaic armies did not have elephants as per DBA since they were not introduced until Ptolemy II.

The factions are not balanced and are not meant to be. Some will be harder to play than others.

[Hrafnkell]

[Hrafnkell]

This is Ptolemaic Egypt, as you can see.

[Snorken]

Looks like it could be fun!

[Mongoloid Cow]

Your screenshots aren't working (for me at least). From what you have written though, it looks like it might be an excellent scenario.

[RedAlert]

Good heavens, this looks excellent!

[Snorken]

Originally Posted by Mongoloid Cow

Your screenshots aren't working (for me at least).

They worked for me the first time i looked at them, but now they don't work... strange...

[Hrafnkell]

Hmm yeah, they were up for me too before but are gone now. I had them linked to my website...I'll put links up to the screenshots. Might be a problem at the source.

One problem I have not worked out yet is the starting location for the Regency. Being that Perdikkas is gone and that the Regency was fought over by Antipatros and Olympias (out of Epiros) I was thinking of making Olympias regent (in Epiros) and bringing Pyrrhos in at a later date...but then of course I would run into the problem of their starting location being occupied...

[Hrafnkell]

Ptolemaic Egypt

The Levantine Coast

[mrtn]

link doesn't work

The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer. Visit our help area for more information.

[Hrafnkell]

Ok, here they are to prevent further bandwidth problems

[Snorken]

Those scarecrows in the previews, are they victory points?

[Hrafnkell]

I'm using the same victory point markers as the Warhammer mod; they're less obtrusive. Every city is a VP location and there are other locations marked as well where cities were founded during the Hellenistic Era, such as at Antioch in Syria and Berenike in Egypt. Unfortunately they don't show up real well but the Firaxis obelisks stand out too well.

[Varwnos]

Goodluck with the 31 civs in a huge map, i know it is a huge amount of work...

[Hrafnkell]

Yeah...it really is. I figured 31 would be plenty but I started to realize pretty quickly that I was going to have to do some combining and paring.

[LouLong]

Nice job so far and great topic !

Personally I would not have bothered with the East because they soon enough went thir own way (except for the brief Antiochus III (IIRC) journey) which means more precision for strategically disputed areas such as the Agean or Koele-Syria.

You don't look like you are lost at all but if you need help for finding city names, I guess I can really help.

[Hrafnkell]

Originally Posted by LouLong

Nice job so far and great topic !

Personally I would not have bothered with the East because they soon enough went thir own way (except for the brief Antiochus III (IIRC) journey) which means more precision for strategically disputed areas such as the Agean or Koele-Syria.

You don't look like you are lost at all but if you need help for finding city names, I guess I can really help.

I did consider doing just that, LouLong. I didn't for a couple of reasons:

1) The campaigns of Antigonos and Eumenes, the most exciting of any of the Sucessor Wars, led into Media and Persia.

2) But I needed to include Parthia, since they came into the picture and expanded not just into the eastern satrapies but eventually into Babylonia and Mesopotamia as well.

3) I have a weakness for the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. But as I say, I did consider it and doing so might have simplified my task in many ways.

Finally, I cannot rule out the possibility of doing just what you suggested in the end if this setup doesn't work. The other option is to leave the map long and narrow like it is now, but to include Italy, Spain, and North Africa instead of the east and therefore make Rome and Carthage and the Italian Greek states part of the picture. This is something I was considering as my next project, in fact.

As for cities...I used CivArmy's Kushan cities but pared the names down to eliminate those not actually in existence yet during this era, found a decent collection of Mauryan cities. The main problem is cities for Antigonos, Lysimachos, Antipatros etc, who did not apparently found many cities - or at least not many that went recorded in history. I'll have this problem with Eumenes no matter the setup since he wasn't trying to found a dynasty and wasn't left along long enough to found colonies even if he wanted to.

So what do people prefer? A) The Eastern Option, or B) The Western Option?

[LouLong]

I prefer C) no east, no west !
But that is just my opinion.

I understand perfectly your liking for the Bactrians as I have it myself. Nevertheless if you have them you probably need their nemesis the Hephtalits as well.

And if you cut below the Aral sea, that already make the map much smaller and you keep the Parthians (Parnii).

Anyway this is your scenario, not mine so don't feel like you have to respect anyone's wish (ot you won't be able to finish your scenario at all because of conflictual requests).

I just gave this scenario some thought before deciding to turn to the Medieval Pack first. I am glad someone else is planning it. Nevertheless it has to be different from my ideas, naturally.
First because map size, loading times, etc... are a key element for me. Second because I have MP in mind. And this scenario enables a good balance between the 3 main civs (Lagids, Seuleucids, Antigonids). Now of course that means I planned to start later than you do, that is when they are kind of settled and when the small civs (Bythinia, Armenia, Pontus,..) are settled as well.
In this case the East became much less important than the Aegean and Syria, where small islands and cities can be represented (different scale also then of course).

I am both glad (and curious) you had the Romans but I wonder how you will make them "wait" ? Tech-tree ? And how do you with the Galatians ?
I would probably have incorporated Regnum Bosphorii into Pontus (even if it happened only later) for simplification.

How will you do for the buidlings of hoplites/phalanx ? Use mercenary resources located in Greece ?
Then you could make wheat both a luxury and a straegic resource for improvements (enabling higher populations) or maybe 2 different ones that would be mostly in Regnum Bosphori and Egypt.

If you use flags for leaderheads, may I advise the rose for Rhodes ?

About cities, I was just asking because I saw lots of empty spaces in Levant and in Egypt (but of course in what I had in mind, the tetrapolis would already have been built...). Kushansor other "barbarians" I would not know very well.

[Hrafnkell]

Thanks, LouLong, I appreciate the feedback. I'm going to run a couple of errands and when I get back I'll write a response and give you some of my ideas and solutions to the potential problems.