Allow me to introduce: PALMYRA (v.0.99)

Version 0.99


Palmyra was a short-lived, powerful kingdom on the borders of the Roman and Persian Empires. Flaring into prominence in the third century AD, it rose to control an area of land stretching from the Euphrates to Libya to Greece before Rome wrested control of its empire back from the renegade Queen Zenobia.

Some of you may be familiar with the civilisation, which was featured in the Rise of Rome expansion pack to the original Age of Empires:

Civilisation name: PALMYRA
Adjective: Palmyrene
Colour: Aqua
Starts with: The Wheel, Agriculture
Leaders: Zenobia (Creative, Financial),
Septimus Odenathus (Organised, Financial)
Unique Unit: Palmyrene Garrison (replaces Archer; heavy on defence)

Here's the file

Enjoy!

Note: Updates to follow.

Do you have LH portraits and a UU re-skin? (out of curiosity)

I like the idea - nice flag as well.

I do have LH portraits, but I was unable to find any images of Septimus Odenathus, so I did a fancier version of the flag.

That's only a placeholder though.

No, there's no reskin from the basic archer, although that said, the player colour is distinctive enough for it not to be necessary (the colour actually makes a surprising difference).

The UU has its own button as well (of course) as do the leaders, but at the moment, poor old Septimus doesn't have a face... I'm working on that, though.

Zenobia's portrait's rather good, though, IMHO...

Can you post screenshots?

And can you also give the stats of the Palmyrene Garrison compared to the normal archer?

Okay, here are a few screens:
Primitive Palmyra
Zenobia start game screen
Zenobia Civilopedia
Septimus Odenathus Civilopedia
Palmyra Civilopedia
Palmyrene Garrison Civilopedia

As I said, the artwork for Septimus Odenathus is a placeholder only, until I can come by a suitable image for him. Apparently, none yet exist online...

Very cool. Nice color and the flag looks good as well.

sorry but never heard of these guys before how long did they have an empire for?

Interesting choice JBG. Nice colour too - feel like I'm playing a militant wing of the United Nations

Cool.

I'd have thought that a variant of the Camel Archers UU or Cataphract Cavalry would be more appropriate. If I remember correctly Palmyra was famous for their huge Cataphract corp and their excellent camel scouts.

I'm currently playing in a RPG set in Palmyra, there's loads of background of information about the Empire here, http://balbinus.com/Zenobia.htm

How would I go about getting cataphract cavalry? I suppose a heavier replacement for the horseman...

Palmyra was famous for their Camel warriors, so a camel-based unique unit would have been cool. (especially considering they did not stand tight defensively very long against Rome, but brought both Empires rather quickly to their knees by attacking). But ok.

What's the city list?

@Octomon, what is this for a RPG if I may ask? (you can pm me too )

mitsho

We are playing a playing a pen and paper roleplaying gaming using the Runequest rules. It is set in Palmyra at around 270 AD.

Have a look at the link I posted, it's a cool setting.

Wei-Yan said:

sorry but never heard of these guys before how long did they have an empire for?

Click to expand...

Apologies if this isn't quite right, but rusty memory and a lot probably potted history from WRG*'s Army lists for DBM...

It was a semi-autonomous trading city in Syria during the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. Palmyrene units fought in Roman armies of the time and contributed a fair number of Cataphracti (sp?) to latter Roman Armies. Also noted for their camelry (as noted above) and archers. Around 260 AD the Persians destroyed a Roman army, capturing the Emporer (Valerian?). The city's ruler at this time was Odenathus, who fought the Persians, and commanding the armies of the Eastern empire, chased them back to their capital.

He was murdered a few years later (suspeciously?). His wife Zenobia took control of parts of the Eastern empire and fought the Emperor, eventually losing in 273AD (she had a nice retirement in Rome by all accounts).

Palmyra lost its importance after this, but still carried on as a garrison town of some form.

So as an independent "world" power, only about 13 years. But in this time defeated Sassanid Persians and Romans.


Hope this helps

@jbg - good choice of topic.

*Wargames Research Group, Devizes, UK

The city list includes major cities that were captured by Palmyra, including Antioch, Emesa, Latakiya, Tartus, Damascus and Ashquelon. In order to eliminate more than one occurrence of city names in the civs list, I removed certain cities from the lists of other civs (like Damascus from the Arabs, for example).