Anno Domini - a full mod from R8XFT

[The Last Conformist]

No, the Indus Civilization was the Harappans.

Edit: IOW, the civilization you described is both the Harappans and the Indus Civilization.

 

[mitsho]

I'm still a bit unsurea about having Palmyra (which I absolutely adore) and 'similarily-looking' Nabateans in the mod, but leave out the Sabeans as a representative of Southern Arabia. I know, we don't know much of Saba itself, and that it wasn't the biggest and important 'principality'. But we know of other 'culturally and economically' big civilizations in Southern Arabia with just another name. But Saba is so placative, everybody gets what it should represent. Or did you know the Homeritai or the Chatamoritai?

mfG mitsho

EDIT: @TLC WE call them Harrapans. We don't know if they really were them, do we? (just nitpicking)

 

[The Last Conformist]

I'd think Saba itself is more deserving than the Nabataeans.

 

[The Last Conformist]

EDIT: @TLC WE call them Harrapans. We don't know if they really were them, do we? (just nitpicking)

Yes we do, since both "Harappans" and "Indus Civilization" are modern names given to the same ancient civilization.

The Meluhha mentioned in Mesopotamian sources probably refers to them, and thus possibly indicates what they might've called themselves.

 

[mitsho]

Oh, I forgot to give my solution. Although it's a bad terrible solution, why not 'merge' Palmyra and the nabateans (I repeat: It makes no sense historically, but they were similar: East-West Desert traders with a military tradition (= attack caravans...). But so we have place for Saba and we can fill up the Palmyrian city list, but Palmyra got to be in because of beautiful Queen Zenobia...

mfG mitsho

 

[Plotinus]

[R8XFT] Thanks for the scenario endorsement! I'd say that pretty much all the religious/cultural stuff from the first era (ie, everything pagan) could probably be safely given to the Saxons in your mod, at least towards the end of it. Despite the implication of my tech tree, I think things such as Wyrd, warrior halls and ring-giving, and so on were there pretty much from the start. Obviously the Saxons were culturally similar to the Scandinavians, so there's quite a bit of overlap ("Beowulf" is set in Scandinavia, of course). Come to think of it, you don't have any Scandinavians in there... perhaps they are a bit northern and too removed from the rest of it, which seems to me to have its centre of gravity, as it were, in the Mediterranean. So it would be nice to get the Saxons in as representatives of northern European culture, in which case I should think you could stress all that fun northern pagan stuff as much as possible...

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

@TLC and Mishto - ok, I'm more than happy for it to be Saba and not Nabatea.

@Plotinus - I'll have a look at introducing a couple of those techs somewhere in the last age.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

One of the reasons I wanted the Amazons in the mod was because I wanted to have four African nations, to make it a decent culture group size. So, I've taken the Amazons out in favour of Libya, swapped some leaderheads and backgrounds around and come up with these four likely looking candidates:

They are:
Top left : Queen Aqaluqa of Nubia
Top right : Chief Obatata of the Nok
Bottom left : Empress Candace of Ethiopia
Bottom right : King Niumateped of Libya

I understand that all of Africa east of Egypt was known as Libya during most of the mod's timescale.

I'm not a big fan of the original Libyan background above and I'm not sure that Candace looks best in front of those huts, so a second option for Candace and Nuimateped is as follows:

I personally prefer the second option for the bottom two. I'm dying to get that jungle background in somewhere .

Actually, thinking about it, possibly Nuimateped should have darker skin like so:

What do you think?

By the way, don't worry about the Amazon leaderhead posted earlier. I'll find a home for her...

 

[RedAlert]

Those are amazing! I'd give my opinion on what choices you should make there, but I am unfortunately unable to choose between one perfect thing and another! Perhaps others can be of more help...

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

That Libyan guy looked....Polynesian, especially with the old background...lol...but thats not a bad thing..keep that in mind for later R8XFT, because I'm sure you'll be visiting Oceania on your Leaderhead tour of duty in the future...

 

[Plotinus]

I love the braided hair of the Nubian queen. I would also say (I've said this before) that the Ethiopian queen ought, I think, to be a bit lighter skinned, as the ancient Ethiopians (that is, the Axumites) were racially more similar to the Egyptians or to the Arabians, and weren't as dark as, say, the Nubians. "Candace", of course, was a title, not an individual's name, but no doubt you know that. It's quite a nice name really. I agree that the huts don't look so good - surely Ethiopia was more advanced than that at that stage - so perhaps the waterfall is better, although I'm not convinced it looks really Ethiopian. I would tend to something a little more like the one you've used for Nubia. That is a bit of a tricky one though.

I like the background for the Nok chap. Very evocative!

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

With Sween's and Civarmy's this will make THREE Ethiopian Leaderheads...more the merrier I suppose.

 

[Master Kodama]

I'd say for that Libyan leaderhead, go with a shade somewhere in between the two options you've shown here. One looks like it might be too light, the other, too dark -- at least, too dark for his facial structure IMO.

But overall, excellent work and I'm looking forward to this mod with great anticipation.

[Edit] I LOVE that Cleopatra leaderhead, it's fantastic! Much better than the Firaxis version, I may use her to replace the standard in the Epic game.

 

[Snorken]

I've taken the Amazons out in favour of Libya

You did what?! Now we can't have a mod without Amazons, can we? You'd better put them in again...
I'm glad you'll find a place for the Amazon leaderhead though...

 

[Antiochus VII]

I like the newer versions (jungle background, etc) of the previews a lot better BUT I think the darker Nuimateped is TOO dark - could you do a version maybe 2/3 of the way to the new one (i.e almost as dark)?

 

[Xyth]

My thoughts on the Libyan leaderhead:

I think he looks the right shade to me, I definately don't think the darker version looks good or representative. What you could do to make him look less Polynesian is to give him blue eyes. IIRC the Libyans were a Berber people and the Berber were known for being blue eyed (or am I imagining things?)

I like the idea of Saba as opposed to Nabatea. The problem with Nabatea (and Palmyra too?) is that once you have Petra it doesn't take long to run out of cities.

Saba was one of several South Arabian states that shared a similar culture (Qataban, Himyar, Hadramawt, Ma'in, among others), so there's heaps of cities, and Saba had hegemony of most of these other states at one time or another. I could put together a city list if you like, I have several good books on the region.

Arabia or Yemen are probably better and more-inclusive names, though Saba is best known. Otherwise Hadramawt is often used to refer to the region, not just the state. The Romans called the region Arabia Felix.

Otherwise the Himyarites united the region for a while in the 2nd century AD so that's a possibiliy too.

 

[Xen]

@R8XFT- lovelly- the lybian leaderhead is much better then the amazons

@Xyth- west north african berbers are known for thier blue eyes- but only after the the 4th century AD when various european tribes migrated to the area via Roman invite- its more historical to leave him with darkeyes, IMO

*that said, perhaps its best o model the Libyam leaderhead of Mummar Khadaffi- havign him as a leaderhead woudl kick ass! thier is no leader that has pl;ayed the fence beign both good guy and bad, nor a leader more stylish, in the world, then gool ole' Mummar- as far as third world dictateors go, I'd have to say hes my favorite

 

[Xen]

Gallery De Muammar

 

[Xyth]

I reckon if R8XFT put khakis, aviator shades and an afro on his Nuimateped it wouldn't be too far off Khadaffi...

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Maybe for Modern era...lol