Alexander's Conquests development thread

[Ozymandias]

Since we're being picky, maybe we ought to stipulate that they're called Bactrian because the Greeks first encountered them in what they called Bactria. They were domesticated for about 2 millenia prior to Alexander The G; that includes quite a swathe of history-making by many non-hellene sapiens.

No argument there Indeed, the earliest references I could come up with re: the Eurasian domestication of camelidae are Biblical "discussions" (read: near-arguments) re: this topic.

@Keroro: Yeah, I agree with you about our modern associations of the area with camels of both Old World species - yet even the Bactrians in the Persians' army were most closely associated with their heavy horse cavalry. I like your idea re: using them as a resource for buildings although I cannot yet think of for what Insofar as land unit transport goes, don't forget that the AI doesn't know how to use these. I'll keep cogitating ... or something ...

Best,

Oz

 

[Quinzy]

acording to...wiki...the romans and the persians used camels.

 

[Ozymandias]

acording to...wiki...the romans and the persians used camels.

I love the "...wiki...". Yep, camels have seen consistent and and amazing use (even for military transport services by the USA then the CSA in the 1860s) but, again, it's their use as mounts for warriors that's in question.

@Keroro - Obviously I've been giving some thought to what we might as well call the "camel question". Thought: the road network was sparse in the time and place you're modeling, and not much would have been done, in this timeframe, in the way of improvements of any sort, so perhaps "camels" could be a required resource for Workers ... ?

Best,

Oz

 

[Keroro]

I may make some small wonders requiring camels that increace trade (like the Colossus). Alternatively 'Egyptian Bazaar' could require camels in the radius and increase Gold. I think that I can probably find a few uses for Camels in the Egyptian area.

@Keroro - Obviously I've been giving some thought to what we might as well call the "camel question". Thought: the road network was sparse in the time and place you're modeling, and not much would have been done, in this timeframe, in the way of improvements of any sort, so perhaps "camels" could be a required resource for Workers ... ?

That would stop other nations from building workers, but I see where you're coming from. What to do with the Bactrian version is the most vexing concern. AFAIK the area wasn't really known for it's trading, and as you mentioned earlier it is their horse cavalry that was famed in those days.

I am toying (only in my head ATM) with having upgrades for workers that depend on the local pack animals - so you could upgrade workers to camel workers, dromedary workers, Elephant workers (in India) or horse workers depending on what resources you have available. The more I think about it the more I like it. The upgrade to camel workers would allow them to allow them to cross deserts, and that would allow them to complete the North African Trade Route that Alex was planning when he died. Problem is still that these workers cannot be traded, but I guess I can live with that. OMG, the barbarian workers would have to be upgradable to Beaver workers, since that would be the regional resource they have available. It all starts to fall into place.

 

[Ozymandias]

Re: your concern regarding Workers, why not simply have more than one kind, available to different Civs, with only the pertinent ones requiring the resource?

-Oz

 

[Keroro]

Re: your concern regarding Workers, why not simply have more than one kind, available to different Civs, with only the pertinent ones requiring the resource?

-Oz

I was trying to avoid having more than one kind so that they would be tradable. Then again I already have two kinds - the Alexandrians get engineers, who are much better at building fortifications but can't build mines and irrigation. I'm thinking that camel workers would be good at irrigation and roads, maybe the horse ones would be good at roads and mines, the beaver ones would be good at cutting down trees and the elephant workers would be the only ones able to chop jungles. The Bactrian workers would be good at... Well, haven't decided yet.

I shall sleep on it and see what I come up with. I get some pretty good ideas while asleep.

Thanks to everyone for input today. At least I know that it's not just me that struggled to find reference to camel mounted cavalry.

 

[Ozymandias]

Another thought on camels as military units: negative evidence: I can find no definitive record of Alexander's successor in Egypt, Ptolemy I, utilizing camels as war animals.

Indeed, the only mention I could find (http://www.ne.jp/asahi/luke/ueda-sarson/PtolemaicSuccessorDBM.html) is extraordinarily ambiguous: "Bedouin camelry: Although one secondary source I have read claims camels were only introduced under Ptolemy II, Diodoros records a "Fort Camel" as early as 321 BC, so such troops could well have been in use from before Ptolemy's take over of Egypt."

In short, my personal suspicion is that, despite our commonly held associations of the area being rife with guys riding camels waving scimitars or whatever, the answer is to not bother to include camel units of any sort.

- On a much more positive note, in my research I stumbled across http://www.pothos.org/ (pothos = "longing"; go figure), a website with forums calling itself "Alexander the Great's Home on the Web".

Happy Hunting,

Oz

EDIT/PS - http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander00.html ... even though there is some evidence that they subscribe to the POV that Alex was, um, uh (how to put this delicately ...) among the greatest mass murderers of all time ...

-O.

 

[Blue Monkey]

- the Alexandrians get engineers, who are much better at building fortifications but can't build mines and irrigation.

Search around the web for references to "Bematist", those are the guys that built the roads so Al & the gang could get anywhere.

 

[Ozymandias]

Search around the web for references to "Bematist", those are the guys that built the roads so Al & the gang could get anywhere.

Wikietc.: "Under Alexander the Great and his successors, bematists were royal surveyors in charge of measuring distances, e.g. for successful troop movements." [emphasis added]

"Bematist" derives from the Greek "bema" (βήμ&#945, the length of a pace. i.e., about 2.5 feet; bematists were those who "measured by paces".

I can't find any reference to Alex's armies employing road builders whatsoever, although a clue can be found at livius.org re: the Persian Royal Road: "The soldiers marched along the Royal road, which connected the Persian capitals with Sardes. It was not a paved street, but it must have been the best road the Macedonian soldiers had ever seen." (http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander05.html)

Best,

Oz

 

[pinktilapia]

I was trying to avoid having more than one kind so that they would be tradable. Then again I already have two kinds - the Alexandrians get engineers, who are much better at building fortifications but can't build mines and irrigation. I'm thinking that camel workers would be good at irrigation and roads, maybe the horse ones would be good at roads and mines, the beaver ones would be good at cutting down trees and the elephant workers would be the only ones able to chop jungles. The Bactrian workers would be good at... Well, haven't decided yet.

Alas, the AI won't like you forbidding some types of worker actions. For the worker AI strategy to be flagged, you need all these actions checked (expect the 'build city' one). Ever wondered why RFRE slaves could clear slave unrest ?

 

[Keroro]

Yeah, I'm a little worried about the AI with these upgraded workers. I think it should be OK except with the elephant workers in India - I want the elephants to be quick at jungle clearing but not at other jobs. Most of the other workers should be OK, the ones only available to Alexander will be player controlled so they're no problem. The horse / camel workers will probably need to be given all the commands anyway.

Does anyone know if it's possible to convert the LM Forest terrain into Jungle, and then use jungle terrain as something else?

 

[Blue Monkey]

Wikietc.: "Under Alexander the Great and his successors, bematists were royal surveyors in charge of measuring distances, e.g. for successful troop movements." [emphasis added]

"Bematist" derives from the Greek "bema" (βήμ&#945, the length of a pace. i.e., about 2.5 feet; bematists were those who "measured by paces".

I can't find any reference to Alex's armies employing road builders whatsoever....

So if I understand you correctly, you want to argue that Alexander employed specialists to tell him how far it was through that next set of hills, but not to use any of their surveying or engineering skills to actually make it easier for that huge baggage train to make it over them.

 

[Virote_Considon]

How about just giving the upgrraded workers to Alexander, then, and only giving Alexanders workers certain tasks? (So Camel workers can ONLY road, and if Desert is impassable to "wheeled" then any unit that wants to irrigate over it would have to wait. Likewise, Elephant workers are the only worker that can clear jungles, but arn't that good at many other worker actions).

 

[Ozymandias]

So if I understand you correctly, you want to argue that Alexander employed specialists to tell him how far it was through that next set of hills, but not to use any of their surveying or engineering skills to actually make it easier for that huge baggage train to make it over them.

Bizarrely - yes. A strategos would want to know how far it was to the next battlefield, mountain pass, watering hole, whatever, and therefrom calculate how long it would take to reach; if his scouts knew where the enemy was, if they would get there first, etc. Also, road building would have taken an extraordinary amount of time for an army on the march; this - the lack of delays encamped away from battlefields for extended periods of time during which road construction might have occured - would seem to jive with the speed with which Alexander moved his troops.

I'm not categorically stating that I'm correct, merely that my knowledge and research don't indicate that Alexander or even the Persians did much road building (archaeological evidence indicates that the Persians largely depended upon an "inherited" series of roads; a significant piece of evidence here is that the Persian Empire's road network was laid out inefficiently re: the routes between their major cities etc.).

Best,

Oz

 

[Ozymandias]

Alas, the AI won't like you forbidding some types of worker actions. For the worker AI strategy to be flagged, you need all these actions checked (expect the 'build city' one).

True - but each worker job can have a prerequisite tech assigned to it. There's no reason why that can't be an Era=None tech which the Civ in question isn't assigned.

-Oz

 

[Keroro]

@ V_C - That's probably what I'm going to do, though I would have liked to give the elephant workers to Maurya too. There might be a Roman engineer too (Faber - nicked from RFRE). The problem that remains is what the hell I'm going to do with the Bactrian dromedaries. They may end up being a bonus resource.

@ Blue Monkey and Oz - Considering what we know of the psyche of Alex I wouldn't be surprised if he took along a group of surveyors to mark out how far he had gone. It's pretty rubbish in game terms though. He was a pupil of Aristotle (despite the questionable decisions he took late in his life) and seems to have had a yearning to measure himself against the greatest people the western world had ever seen. He built shrines to people like Achilles and Heracles and is known to have paid respects to Cyrus the Great at his Persian tomb. These are people who did extreme feats; Alex tried to emulate and, in many cases, exceed them. A wish to be able to measure how much further east he had gone than any other Greek seems kind of natural. They're not going in the game to do that though.

In any case, the engineers I have in the game are meant principally to be for building military structures like "radar towers" and "barricades".

 

[pinktilapia]

True - but each worker job can have a prerequisite tech assigned to it. There's no reason why that can't be an Era=None tech which the Civ in question isn't assigned.

-Oz

Yes right, but then that civ will not be able to do the job in question with any type of worker... I guess it might be fine in some cases.

Wouldn't it be relevant to use camels as required resource (in city area) to build a silk road warehouse or the kind (+50% tax and luxury income = income from tariffs) representing the progressive opening of the trade route by Alexander?

 

[Keroro]

Yes right, but then that civ will not be able to do the job in question with any type of worker... I guess it might be fine in some cases.

Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. I might stop the other races from having the ability to build "radar towers" and "barricades", but I'm not keen on giving any of the other worker commands to era=none techs.

Wouldn't it be relevant to use camels as required resource (in city area) to build a silk road warehouse or the kind (+50% tax and luxury income = income from tariffs) representing the progressive opening of the trade route by Alexander?

I think that Camels will be used for something similar, but I'm trying to avoid putting too much emphasis on the Silk Road. It's kind of been done to death by other mods like TAM. I need to make the military aspects the core of the game. I'll try to get some info on the units (for Macedon and Alex at least) posted over the weekend so that people can point out anything stupid I'm doing.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Have you seen this wikipedia article on Athenian Sacred Ships. Maybe a potential UU?

 

[Keroro]

As far as I can tell, the Sacred Ships are not really mentioned after about 400 BCE. Even so, I'd include them if someone can suggest a unit graphic I can use. I have most of the galleys available in the scenario already, though I might have missed some. Any suggestions?