An Ancient India Scenario

[7ronin]

Well, we will move the start of the mod up to just before the death of Alexander as Rambuchan recommends. We will also dump the 16 Mahajanapadas civs. What will they be? I have several conflicting maps (thankfully, none from Wikipedia) so we will have to wait and see what the books I've ordered have to say.

 

[Rambuchan]

You are wise beyond your years 7ronin

I think throwing Alexander/Sikander in there will really add something very interesting to it. Would be great if you could scan and share some of those maps. Hopefully Takhisis can advise us on what to do with the western regions (depending on how much in the west is included).

I'm still wondering whether some religion a la civ4 can happen...

 

[7ronin]

You are wise beyond your years 7ronin

Since I am almost at three score and ten, I consider myself lucky that I still have any of my wits about me. Senility is just around the corner.

I think throwing Alexander/Sikander in there will really add something very interesting to it. Would be great if you could scan and share some of those maps. Hopefully Takhisis can advise us on what to do with the western regions (depending on how much in the west is included).

Maps to follow tomorrow. Alexander will be very interesting. Chandragupta advanced the Mauryan Empire to the "Macedonian" border just as Alexander died.

I'm still wondering whether some religion a la civ4 can happen...

Something will happen with religion. I'm just not sure what. I am waiting for an epiphany. We start out with Jains, Hindus, Buddhists, Animists, and Hellenists. Which religion a civ starts with or later chooses should affect which choices are available on the tech tree, how they accumulate culture, and how they interact with other civs. Pursuing a particular religion will have advantages and disadvantages. I know next to nothing about Civ IV. Padawan* Tak will have to clue me in. [*semi-obligatory use of Sanskrit; y'all probably thought I was making a lame Star Wars reference ]

 

[Takhisis]

Maps for the Achæmenid Empire and Hellenistic divisions (including kingdoms of Taxila and Poros) are being uploaded as we speak post.

 

[Takhisis]

Theeere we go.




They're biggish.

 

[7ronin]

For game purposes, do we treat the various eastern satrapys (Bactria, Gedrosia, Arachosia) of the Seleucid Kingdom as separate entities or as one body?
Another map:

 

[Takhisis]

If you check ym second map (camera didn't take too good a picture) Gedrosia and Arachosia were conquered from the Seleucids by the Bactrians at around -185.

Anyway, if we want Seleucid Satrapies we can't have Sikander, unless 'Sikander' is just a generic 'Greeks' civilisation which changes leaders (governments, maybe?)

 

[7ronin]

Alexander conquers the area in 326. He dies in 323 and then Seleucus takes over. As far as the game goes, who is in charge is transparent. Since we are starting before Alexander's death, we can use Alexander for the leader and consider the individual conquered areas/client states as being part of the Alexander's empire. Does that sound reasonable to everyone? A united front, so to speak, will present more of a challenge to the Indian players.

 

[7ronin]

Another map:

 

[Big Bopper]

@7ronin
here's a map that might help you out

 

[7ronin]

BB: Thank you, great map.

 

[Takhisis]

You could use those Lion capitels as city improvements.

 

[Rambuchan]

Very nice maps

Given the maps on display here, will you go with Vidarbha in place of Asmaka in the central and western Deccan?

Alexander conquers the area in 326. He dies in 323 and then Seleucus takes over. As far as the game goes, who is in charge is transparent. Since we are starting before Alexander's death, we can use Alexander for the leader and consider the individual conquered areas/client states as being part of the Alexander's empire. Does that sound reasonable to everyone? A united front, so to speak, will present more of a challenge to the Indian players.

This seems entirely sensible. Better for game play, good leaderhead available and so on. Are you going to set up the battle with Poros as one of the starting set pieces of the scenario? I reckon that'd be much fun. It'd also work well to weaken what would be a (potentially too) powerful contender in Sikander.

I guess the debate over whether to put someone (whoever it is) up in the extreme north west (and maybe another raider type civ in the west), to harass Sikander and give something of a challenge, will ultimately be decided by how far west the scenario map will go. I don't see any reason why not to have a large area there. It'd make the game more fun for those playing as Sikander, prevent him from rampaging too easily into the Ganges plains, and it'd give the Mauryans good land to expand into to grab the Domination Victory, as well as provide a good historically based 'western campaign' phase.

You could use those Lion capitels as city improvements.

Yes, I was thinking of those too. You've got to have them really. It seems sensible for them to provide culture and anti-corruption to aid the creation of a large empire.

You can easily make them available only to the Mauryans, if you so wish, with the old special civ advance for just them and this tech set as a requirement for building them. I think it'd be a good idea to give the Tamils something comparable (say a bronze statue styled on the dancing Shiva) for strong culture points that would allow them to contest that victory condition. It usually works well when you've got a conquering civ set up with a race against the clock to take out civs threatening a culture victory.

Have you gotten any closer to choosing which Tamil kindgoms to go with in the south? If the map is large enough then I'm still gunning for having four down there: Cheras, Pallavas, Cholas and Pandyas (as well as the whipping boy in Sri Lanka of course). Nice little regional contest / sub game to be had there.

 

[Takhisis]

Maybe, if the some civ-specific improvements and wonders were to be available only at a certain time, just make civ-specific resources (available in each country's homeland/beginning are/sphere of influence) depend on those civ-specific techs and then place those wonders and improvements in the normal tech tree.

 

[7ronin]

Yes, we will have Pandyas, Cheras, Cholas, and the Sri Lankans in the south and Vidharba just north of them in the center. I thought the Pallavas were a later off shoot of Cholas who didn't come into their own until ca. 200 C.E.

In the west and northwest we have the Macedonians, Pauravas, Taxila, and Bactria. Maybe a couple of others for Alexander to practice on before he takes on the Pauravas.

The tech, Buddhist Edicts (available to the Mauryans only), will allow building of Ashoka Pillars these are the lion capitals].
The tech, unknown (available to the southern factions only) will allow building of Shiva Statues. Or maybe Kali statutes. They were big on Kali in the south.

I think our cartographer will be using the Mughals map with the east side cut off.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Finally made it through the posts. So here's my two cents on the discussion so far.

Governments

• Janapada - king elected for life by council of clan/family leaders who then serve as his cabinet. King can be "removed" - simulate by war weariness?
• Sabha - assembly of people (like Athens)
• Samiti - oligarchic assembly (caste based ?) Samraj would be the leader of such a group.
• Gana - constitutional republic with elected president
• Dynastic monarchy
• Matriarchy - mostly in Tamil regions
• Chakravartin - emperor by conquest

All are independent of religion

Additional Civs

• Sakyas - Nepal & Eastern foothills on Indian side. Gautama's clan. Seems to have had a janapada style gov't but with hereditary kingship.
• Nagas as stand-in for the several tribes in the hills on the Eastern edge of map. Like Assam region. Non-playable but a harasser. If their cities are in jungles & their units don't have that restriction they can be difficult to pursue & conquer.
• Asvakas in the mountains on the West. Another smaller civ to harass the Greeks.
• Kushans or other settled descendants of Scythians. Yet more difficulties in uniting the West.
• Yadavas - further into the Deccan from Paurava.

Trade "Civs"
The model is already there in the Mughals scenario. Islands as capitals. IIRC A couple of them have room for a second or third city. Primary trade to Europe was with the Romans via Egypt. So replace "Europe" with Hellenistic Egypt. Another part of the fallout from Alexander's retreat.

City lists & UUs

• Got lots of maps. Particular cities might be in any of several lists - depending on who currently had the strongest army. And places like Delhi were several smaller municipalities amd/or changed their names several times. Best to wait until the set of civs is definite, then create lists from their core territories. Any short lists can be filled in from things like the map of all the minor tribes listed in the Mahabharata that's on the ole hard drive.
• There's plenty of variety in skills even if the dress & armouries are similar. Desert horsemen, jungle fighters, mountaineers, ... Unusual weapons like the chakra, urumi, madu... Here again settle on the civs & their traits. You'll still have planty to choose from.

Wonders, Religions, etc.

• Look at TAM & MEM for examples of how improvements and wonders (both large & small) can be limited to civ groups & even specific civs. MEM uses this as part of its extensive simulation of religions. IIRC there are things like slave markets increasing unhappiness once certain techs are discovered. Might be misremembering. Obsolescence based on changes in religion (techs) is another way to work with it.
• Remember that resources can be religious. Limit a strategic resource to one region but make it tradable. Make it required for a small wonder. A tradeable Bodhi Tree for example. The several extant Bodhi trees are descendants via seeds or spalings from the original. Then there's Buddha's Tooth. More than one temple was built to house it as control changed from king to king. Wars were fought over these things.
• Natural caves sculpted into temples - Ellora for one example. Then there's the monolithic temples like Mahabalipuram - carved from a single huge stone. The Bamiyan Buddhas were carved later but the caves there were used as monastic cells early on. There's at least one monumental (reclining) Buddha buried there - maybe earlier ones existed as well.
• Jains: the Gomateshvara statue & the Palitana Tirtha are two potential wonders.
• Split Hinduism up. There's no such thing as Hinduism. It's like lumping Christianity, Norse paganism, Hellenistic mystery cults, etc. together & calling it "Europeanism". Saivism and Vaishnavism are quite different. Saivism leaning more towards the ecstatic and Vaishnavism taking a more strictly Vedic/Vedantic approach - to crudely oversimplify. Shaktism is what was referred to above as Kali worship. Kali is only one aspect of the Divine Feminine. Durga is another exemplar.
• Asvamedha (Horse Sacrifice) could be used as the key wonder for the diplomatic victory
• The "space race" - adapted to a "chakravartin" cultural victory - is another potential place for the Asvamedha. Other elements: Building a temple city, Great Stupa, Edict Stone, sending missionaries overseas, ...
• Tamil GW: Aimperumkappiyam - The Five Great Epics . The Sangam era (equivalent to Rennaisance Italy) was exemplified by huge assemblies of poets & other literati.
• Iron-working GW: Wootz is the iron alloy peculiar to classical/medieval India. "Damascus steel" is really wootz traded to Europe via Damascus. Within the last few years archaeologist have uncovered in Sri Lanka what may be the earliest blast furnace. A semi-circle of ceramic tubes was arranged to capture and funnel the monsoon winds through a smelting furnace. Tests demonstrate that the apparatus could have produced temperatures in the same range as Industrial Era processes. There are also indications at the site of trace elements found in wootz but not other steels - although the exact formula to produce wootz is unknown. Nowhere else in the subcontinent has the same combination of geography and meteorology.
• Sri Lanka also has Sigiriya - ill fortress on a monolithic rock. Occupied since late stone age. Structures elaborated and extended up through medieval period. Sometime capitol of the island. Imagine having to literally walk into a lion's mouth to start the ascent to the palace. After walking the stone stairs to half way up the mount. Intimidating to the welcome let alone the invading. Full of other features like a wall of polished porcelain for the king to use as a mirror while strolling. Gardens with hydraulic watering systems, etc.

Hopefully something useful in all that.

 

[Takhisis]

Capital, not capitol, Blue.

 

[7ronin]

I spent some time in the library today. I have a few more maps. Found an interesting history of India which I have started reading. I'm still waiting for the books I bought to arrive. I pretty much have the list of civs finished except for a few I'm pondering. I will polish it up when I'm sure that I have as much information as I'm going to get.

Blue: lots of great ideas in your post.

Governments: The list of governments sounds perfect. Are there Hindi names for the last three? Any thoughts on how each one operates game wise?

Religions: How shall we divide Hinduism? Let's say we have Buddhism, Jainism, the religion (?) of the south, and Hinduism flavors 1 and 2. Are there more than two? Shall we use the names you provided? What advantages does a particular religion confer?

Civs:
From what I can determine:
Asvaka = Kamboja
Sakya = Vajii - winked out long before arrival of Alexander and Chandragupta
Naga - not sure of their status as a civ but I like the idea of snake worshipers. This is apparently the origin of the name of Voldemorts avatar: Naganini.
Kushans - will they fit on the map?
Yadavas - probably absorbed by Avanti

Great wonders: Your great wonders all sound excellent. Since I want this to be a collaborative effort, and you are the expert here, I will defer to your wisdom in selecting the great wonders and their effects. If you are willing to accept the burden that is. In the meantime I will refine the list of civs.

General concepts: I will take a look at TEM and MEM. Hegemon (a worthy product from our spiritual advisor) also has some interesting ideas.

Space Race: Definitely. We can finesse this later.

Resources: Wootz sounds good. Wootz in addition to iron? Metallurgy Tech allows building blast furnace which in turn does ? or building blast furnace makes wootz show up on map which allows production of certain unit improvements?

Tak?
Kalinga was the best source of war elephants. Do we restrict the elephant resource to Kalinga?

Trade Civs: Hellenistic Egypt it is.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Iron would be the resource. Wootz production would be an improvement - maybe a wonder that autoproduces an elite unit. If you only want it in a certain location ...

How about a "limiting" strategic resource? Gives an incentive to conquer certain historically important spots. "Limiting" resources could give advantages to locations that are key but whose civs might be materially restricted. They can fend off larger civs for a while, but not oppose overwhelming force. It would function differently than requiring a "zero era" cultural tech since anyone who controlled the resource location could build the items.

Requiring both an ordinary strategic resource plus a "limiting" resource would give flexibility while maintaining a measure of control over location. If both need to be in the city radius the improvement could be restricted to a very few locations. Allowing one or the other to be traded would widen the field. This would avoid the need for a "unique" resource that might only appear once on the map, but uses up a slot in the resource list. Regionally restricted combinations allow functionally similar yet culturally distinct improvements that are not limited to a particular civ. And the "limiting" resource could need to be local for some improvements, but could be tradable for others.

So that, for example, the wootz blast furnance ( I can look up the name of the location later - I posted about it somewhere) needs iron from anywhere + the "Lanka(?)" limiting resource. The same resource could limit several different improvements or units to production in Sri Lanka but allow trading for the other resources required. Lanka +iron = wootz furnace. Lanka + marble = Sigiriya, etc. OTOH, Magadha + marble = Edict Pillars.

"Limiting" resources could be used to emulate religious developments as well. Example: a city must have a "Tirthankara" resource in its radius as well as access to marble in order to build a Jain temple complex. The Tirthankara resource would only become available with the Jain tech. The resource would be placed on the map at the locations where the Tirthankaras achieved moksha. Resources could similarly restrict where major Shiva shrines, Buddhist stupas, etc. can be built. By careful planning a city could need to have water in its radius to build a ghat, "Krsna" resource for a certain type of mandir, and both as prerequisites for the Kumbh Mela wonder. Allowing some flexibility for location, but pretty much restricting it to a spot on the Ganges.

Locations like Varanasi can be guaranteed focuses for development because of the successive appearance of "limiting" resources for the religious improvements within a fairly limited area of the map. Over the course of the game the same location would be one of the few places that could build small wonders of multiple religions. And maybe two of the small wonders could be requirements for a certain GW?

The reverse situation could also be used. Locally available marble plus a traded "Magadha" resource allows building of an Edict Pillar. Local marble and trading for the "arhat" resource would allow building a major Buddhist stupa. Not exact, but a way to crudely simulate the spread of a religion through missionary activity. Like Asoka sending his children and other bhikshus to set up sanghas in many other countries. Or the sojourns of Buddha's Tooth.

As a generic pattern maybe traded + traded = improvement or unit, traded + local = SW or UU, and local + local = GW.

 

[Takhisis]

Basically, if a religion comes from a certain place, you can simulate it with a religious resource that comes from a single region, so you either conquer it or the religion seeps into your lands via resource trading/build a colony.
You could also limit some requirements to be met within city radius, to further limit and localise some buildings.
Same can be done for forges and fisheries and stuff.
All it takes is to limit some

Also, we could use railroads, since they have no image, for linking resources to water… either lakes or coastal locations could serve.
Perhaps a trade link between, say, Sri Lanka and Hellenistic Egypt could only be acquired by getting to a single port which can be accessed through such a railroad?