civIV Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (RFRE)

[captain beaver]

For the religion, I definetly prefer Stew's model. Although it is true that most mediterranean religions were influencing each other, they were all state supported. All governments were deeply involved in religion and actively extended their own religion into new conquests/settlements. What is different though with the Romans IIRC is that they allowed the natives to continue worshipping their gods, but at the same time, those gods were added in the Roman Pantheon.
Also, I was wondering, do you want to incorporate Jdog500's Revolution mod? It would adequatly represent the occasionnal random revolt that occured from time to time. Of course, it would need to be edited to fit our needs, but it could be a nice addition. At the same time, it could save you hours of coding revolts since most of it is already done.

 

[primordial stew]

What would be a good way to handle the persecution of Christians? Was Nero the 1st to persecute? Whenever it starts, it can cause some local angst (loss of culture?), but I think Amphitheaters should now slowly spread Christianity. This will move it along through the empire as the "cult" gains acceptance despite having no champion nation trying to actively spread it.

With the Conversion to Christianity, Romanism is removed, and Christianity is given to all Roman cities. Roma is made the holy city (right away?). Christianity will now be give a non-zero spread factor so it can freely spread.

The Sassanids adopted Zoroastrianism and ended freedom of religion when they took over. This is actually a good candidate for Revolution.. the people were unhappy with their ability to stop continued Roman attacks, so the govt collapsed, and out of it the much less tolerant, and much more aggressive Sassanid's took over. But Revolutions isn't focused, though maybe it could be tamed! Maybe only allow it to happen to certain civs?

My current plan for Persia is to give them a new leaderhead. The Germanics.. as well as the other great migrations.. maybe when the Huns take a city from them it will spawn Germanic incursitors on the Roman border? Is this more complex than it needs to be?

Now to turn all of this into code I did get the giveCitizenship function working. It's triggered if Lex Agraria (or Constitio Antonii) gets built.



I do plan on adding something similar to the Natural Disasters mod. People should be dying of disease at times. Disease should also possibly effect any stacks of doom. 1 version of history says that this is what finally stopped Attila.

 

[captain beaver]

Wasn't Attila killed when he fell down his horse?
For the Germans, can they use the moving camp from the Gengis Khan scenario? It could represent that the civs on the move.

 

[Fiend777Fits]

i thought attila died of alcohol poisoning. apparently the huns threw big keggers.

 

[pinktilapia]

I read somewhere the AI can't manage the moving camp, it only works effectively for a human player, although I don't see why there is a problem since the camp generate units automatically. Maybe just the issue that the Ai is unable to decide which units it wants...?

 

[Drtad]

What would be a good way to handle the persecution of Christians? Was Nero the 1st to persecute? Whenever it starts, it can cause some local angst (loss of culture?), but I think Amphitheaters should now slowly spread Christianity. This will move it along through the empire as the "cult" gains acceptance despite having no champion nation trying to actively spread it.

With the Conversion to Christianity, Romanism is removed, and Christianity is given to all Roman cities. Roma is made the holy city (right away?). Christianity will now be give a non-zero spread factor so it can freely spread.

The Sassanids adopted Zoroastrianism and ended freedom of religion when they took over. This is actually a good candidate for Revolution.. the people were unhappy with their ability to stop continued Roman attacks, so the govt collapsed, and out of it the much less tolerant, and much more aggressive Sassanid's took over. But Revolutions isn't focused, though maybe it could be tamed! Maybe only allow it to happen to certain civs?

My current plan for Persia is to give them a new leaderhead. The Germanics.. as well as the other great migrations.. maybe when the Huns take a city from them it will spawn Germanic incursitors on the Roman border? Is this more complex than it needs to be?

Now to turn all of this into code I did get the giveCitizenship function working. It's triggered if Lex Agraria (or Constitio Antonii) gets built.



I do plan on adding something similar to the Natural Disasters mod. People should be dying of disease at times. Disease should also possibly effect any stacks of doom. 1 version of history says that this is what finally stopped Attila.

Don't forget that Armenia under Drtad III (or Tiridates III) was the first nation to adopt Christianity as the state religion in 301.

 

[primordial stew]

Don't forget that Armenia under Drtad III (or Tiridates III) was the first nation to adopt Christianity as the state religion in 301.

I don't know if there is a good way to *keep* it that way, but it is easy to do.


> War Camp

Isn't the War Camp for when there are no cities to be building units? The Germanics + Goths are trying to settle somewhere.


> Attila

However he actually died, disease should be effecting armies!

Should this be universally applied to all big stacks, or were some nations less susceptible so shouldn't be considered?

There will be 2 different functions. The one effecting armies will only be active from the 3rd or 4th centuries onward (the begging's of the dark ages!). The other will effect cities, and will come around when the Roman's discover the commerce tech. The commerce tech represents an explosion in trade that came from the Roman's controlling all of the Med (no pirates!).

 

[primordial stew]

@Drtad - What religion was Armenia before Christianity?

I have the conversion function working. It can also get rid of religions (eg Romanism).

The slaveRevolt function is working now as well It converts slaves into barbarians!

 

[Drtad]

Armenia before Christianity had a sort of Hellenistic pantheon. Its in Rome: Total War. Some of the major deities were Anahit, goddess of war, fertility, and beauty; Vahakn, god of thunder and lightning; and Armasd, father of the gods. Sort of like Aphrodite, Zeus, and Ares but with different names.

 

[Fiend777Fits]

man i wanna be on the research crew of this project.

 

[blitzkrieg80]

one should be sure not to equate pan-Indo-European similiarities in deities to "hellenistic" unless they are exactly influenced by Hellenism, such as Roman gods, where some still retain some elements unique from Greek mythology but cannot be distinguished because of cultural amalgamation... For example, classical writers in similar tradition equate Thor to Zeus and Odin to Mercury and any who know of their mythology would agree that that is hardly accurate, except roots in Indo-European belief and tradition... i am not directly familiar with ancient Armenian religion, but if Armasd is the "Father of the gods" separate from Vahakn "God of thunder and lightning" then this is definitely NOT hellenistic, similar to Germanic Odin and Thor... If it was Hellenistic then Armasd would be the "father of the gods, and god of thunder and lightning." I could be wrong if there was recorded evidence of Armenians taking a pantheon from Alexander's conquests or Magna Graeca colonialism... or maybe Armasd is more like Saturn/Cronos who is technical father, supplanted by Zeus the thunderer? Without direct evidence though, for historical accuracy, I would refrain from bringing Greece into the picture.

PS- I am not trying to criticize anybody, especially anybody cool enough to visit this thread and bring any information they might know. I just want to preserve historicaly accuracy, most especially in cultural uniqueness.

I definitely agree that Armenia's cultural importance is overlooked.

Off-subject: some scholars believe that the steppe above Armenia spawned Indo-Europeans, so therefore the Greek pantheon in a sense is possibly taken/influenced from the Armenian pantheon

In the end, all beliefs are unique except Rome's, who copied everybody because of the superior theory of laziness, THUS, we modern people are the true inheritors of Rome! j/k

 

[Drtad]

Yeah thats it, more like a Cronos or a Uranus. Armasd was like them. However, one major difference between the Hellens and the Armenian pantheon was that Anahit was the overlordess of all the gods. Vahakn was more of a war god.

 

[blitzkrieg80]

thats some cool info acutally.

oh yeah, someone asked about Attila... Attila died from a brain hemorrhage during a night with his young Germanic princess... One can assume how that might have happened

 

[mungman]

Hey guys. I popped in every now and again on the Civ III RFRE and after seeing this had to say, please for the love of god make this happen!!! So many times while playing the Civ III version (a work of art by the way), I thought to myself, if this had the scripting that was possible with Civ II this mod would eb perfect.

Anyway, now that I've got that over with...

An idea I had that I think would be possible with Warlords would be something along the lines of great generals like Scipio Africanus, Marius, Sulla, Hannibal, Caesar, etc. Have them pop up around the time they came on the scene. Each leader has his/her (Boudicca) own bonus that ties in with what they did in history, I know this has already been touched on before, but here's the twist. When they first come on the scene, they're young and coming up in the officer corp (contubernalis) and can only be attached to a weaker unit, like velites. As they win battles, they gain rank (tribune of the soldiers, legate, and finally imperator). As each person gains rank, they may choose a promotion which turns that unit it's attached to into a more powerful one (ie velites-> miles socii --> eques --> legio) along with another promotion. Then, when it's about time for that person to fade out of history, like they did in real life, they're gone, the unit will remain, just as Caesar's legions didn't disappear when Caesar was murdered, but the generals and their unique bonuses are gone. Makes them a kind of use 'em or lose 'em element of the game.

I'm not sure how feasible this would be with the coding and all, but it just popped into my head one day and I thought it would make a really cool addition to the mod if it's possible. Anyway, just thought I might throw that out there.

 

[blitzkrieg80]

mungman, that sounds awesome- truly ingenius!! it reminds me of a great little element of The First Triumvirate MOD for RTW, called Promotions and Decorations, where generals rise from legionary commanders to Eques class and so on higher in the elaborate system of political titles. On the same lines, if we wanted to be historical- maybe start as Eques instead of Velites just because most (nobles) didn't start so far at the bottom of the ranks... but Pompey or Vesaspian could start lower maybe, I don't know the history to be precise?

 

[Head Serf]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atilla_The_Hun

Atilla died after a severe nosebleed, I've also read this version from several other sources.

 

[blitzkrieg80]

heh. yes, Attila's death has many accounts, but I would hardly consider Wikipedia an academic authority god bless that useful site... the same can be said of the History Channel

ps- just to be an ass (because i am one) and be off the subject (spam! ): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemmorage

*back on the point, Stew, you are totally right about disease affecting armies! the whole reason Attila couldn't even attempt to invade Rome itself was NOT the Pope but because of the rampant disease amidst his troops from their lack of immunities to disease in city life... Alaric's Goths had the same trouble when they entered her walls... much of history is being reexamined by academics epidemiologically
plus, it's annoying damn flood plains!

edit: "I thought Atilla's expansion was severly hindered by the tactical genious of Flavius Aetius?"-Drtad
maybe a little of that too

 

[Drtad]

I thought Atilla's expansion was severly hindered by the tactical genious of Flavius Aetius?

 

[primordial stew]

What, no "pope defense" to ward off Attila?

> great leader RPG style

This does fit Scipio's career very well!

I don't know how much can be done in python, which is all I have a chance at being able to write. In FFH there is the barbarian chief's ax, which can get passed around. Whichever unit kills the holder becomes the new holder. It acts as a promotion, and give +25% attack or something. I've seen some of the python for it, but I don't know if there is anything in the DLL for it as well.

This is all rather complex, too much so at the moment This should definitely be revisited after the map gets filled out.

For now then, Rome has 2 types of hero units. The 1st the consular army. These cost slightly more than a legion of the time, and can be rebuilt. Then there is the specific hero like Scipio, or Caesar. When the corresponding tech is discovered they are born, and they can't be rebuilt. All of the hero's get the medicII promo (and others, see page1), so even if not used in combat, they can help to keep the army together. I am tempted to take the medic promo away from regular units in order to make the hero/leader units more valuable. They are more powerful than the regular units, but you may be risking the rest of the stack should they fall.

Are there any suggestions on what promotions the opposing heros should have? I know Mithradites invaded Greece, but that is about all :/ Surena defeated Crassus with extra collateral bombardment (had a quick supply of arrows nearby). Would Boudicca be best represented by having city raider promos? She raised a few cities, but was defeated by the legions in a forest. What other heros should there be in addition to those on page1?


1 topic that could use a good deal of creative thinking is how, if at all, to address the various internal power struggles. Consider the "Year of 4 Emperors" scenario (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171164). Quite a work really! And there is the "unit allegiance mod". Maybe that can somehow be used.. but maybe this whole topic is best handled in specific scenarios, and will suffice to be abstracted somehow in the main game?

 

[Drtad]

Here is another possible hero unit against Rome. Tigranes II Tigranes was the first and last emperor of the shortlived Armenian Empire. In the Mithradatic wars, Tigranes was a supporter of Mithradates VI Eupator, but did not get involved in the initial conflicts. When Mithradates was forced to flee Pontus, the Tigranes sheltered him in his court at Tigranocerta, the new capital he had built for Armenia replacing Artaxata. Then the Romans surprised Tigranes II and invaded and soon they were outside Tigranocerta. At the battle of Tigranocerta the Romans routed the Armenian army and Lucullus, the Roman general moved towards Artaxata. Wikipedia says that the Romans won the Battle of Artaxata, but they are mistaken, Tigranes and Mithradates worked together and repelled Lucullus, which caused Lucullus' army to mutiny and Lucullus was recalled to Rome. Tigranes quickly rebuilt the Armenian empire, but when Pompey arrived, Tigranes was too old to fight and he became a vassal king.