Idea: Rhye's and Fall of the Ancient Near East

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TJtheTheologian

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The Sword of Islam inspired this idea. I thought the Middle East from 4000-400 BC would make a great scenario.

Sumerian Dynasty 4000- Gilgamesh- Ur
Egyptian Kingdom 3150- Ramesses II- Thebes
Elam 2800- Enmebaragesi
Akkadian Empire 2334- Sargon- Akkad
Gutian Empire 2154- Erridupizir
Hittite Empire 2000- Hattusili I- Hattusa
Babylonian Empire 1696- Hammurabi- Babylon
Kassites 1531- Kurigalzu
Kingdom of Moab 1275- Mesha- Didon
Phoenician Empire 1200- Hiram- Sidon
Philistine Pentopolis 1175- Achish- Gath
Aram-Damascus 1100- Hazael- Damascus
Kingdom of Judah 1042- David- Jerusalem
Kingdom of Ammon 950- Hadad- Rabbah
Assyrain Empire 934- Shalmaneser III- Nineveh
Kingdom of Israel 930- Omri- Samaria
Kingdon of Edom 875- Hadadezer- Petra
Kingdom of Urartu 860- Sardui I
Mannaean Kingdom 850- Ualli
Chaldean Empire 626- Nebuchadnezzar II- Babylon
Median Empire 625- Cyaxares
Achaemenid Persianate 550- Cyrus- Persepolis

Religions:
Anatolian Polytheism
Egyptian Polytheism
Levantine Polytheism
Mesopotamian Polytheism
Yahwism
Zoroastrianism

Those are some of my ideas. Tell me what you think. :)
 
Yeah, I've studied it a bit, especially the Levant. It's truly fascinating and yet almost alien in how different of a world it was.
 
An idea I had was if there was a way (with RFC type re-spawns) to represent the old-middle-late dynamic of near eastern civs. Especially Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Hittites.
 
Go for it. You'll more than likely have to do all the work yourself though, so if you need help, just ask. Have a look at the other in-progress RFC's (such as mine :D) to get an idea of how to start.

And welcome to the forum :)
 
I've thought about this as well when I read up on that era, and it's very suitable for an RFC mod. Unfortunately even though its regions overlap you can't really use SoI's map, because Mesopotamia needs to be larger for anything interesting to happen there.

I also would start the game later (it isn't even possible to only have one civ active at the beginning because that would be an instant win) and represent the Sumerians with independents until the Akkadian Empire. Also, if you include all incarnations of Babylon with different civs, I'd call the Old Babylonian Empire Amorites, just to make clear that Amorites / Kassites / Chaldeans all equally qualify as Babylonian. Also, your Levant might be a little too crowded (Philistines, Judah and Israel? I'd use independents for the former - or even barbarians if you buy the theory that they are the "Sea Peoples" - and represent the others with one civ). And, if you're using Hatti for the Hittites, don't forget to include Mitanni/Hanigalbat (Hurrians).

Edit: I just realized that Lydia should definitely be on your list, too. We already have a Kroisos LH and they're very suitable for a Mali-like gold focused UHV.
 
Thanks for the feedback! I think I'll change the Tech tree to have 6 periods: early, mid, and late bronze and I-III Iron Age. I do want the Levant to be a little cramped but I understand what you mean. Perhaps for Human players their leader head will be the same through old, middle and late periods, but AI will switch (ie. Hammurabi, Amorite leader, Kassite leader, Nebuchadnezzar II). Also, perhaps to represent intermediate stages like those in Egypt have the civ become highly unstable.
 
actually I think the SoI map wouldn't be bad at all for this time frame. I think room for 4 cities south of Bagdhad/Babylon is reasonable for mesopotamia. it would make it ridiculously easy to start modding anyway. if you didn't want to include the indus valley civ its very simple to chop off the eastern side of the map with a text editor.
 
I also didn't exactly intend on incorporating Kush or most of Arabia. I had Upper Egypt the south most location in my mind. Similar to how Rhye enlarged Europe I'll do the same to the Levant for better playability. Looks I'll be hitting the library (or Amazon) for research, I was thinking of starting with Wolfram von Soden's The Ancient Orient: An Introduction to the Study of the Ancient Near East as well as James B. Pritchard's The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures for primary documents.
 
This is kind of off topic but will Greece spawn in late game? I know they had some influence in the Near East in around 750 BC in the form of colonies. If you were to add them, I think they would be like Portugal in SoI, a trading and military superpower in the region.
 
Well, if the map ends with Anatolia's west coast, you won't be able to completely exclude them (Ionian colonies). It's a matter of taste if they really need an own unplayable civ or can be represented as independents, although a Greek religion would be nice. At least they won't be a military superpower unless the mod is intended to extend into the late 4th century BC which would complicate things a lot.
 
It's not intended to go that late in time. Essentially pre-Hellenistic Middle East. I played tested a few things and amply see the point about a cramped Levant. The Philistine will be Barbarians/Rebels and the Hebrews 1 Civ. In the Jordan area I'm trying to figure out if I should include one, some, or nome of Ammon, Edom, or Moab. Syria will be split between the Arameans and Phoenicians along with rebels representing the numerous Neo-Hittite states.
 
I'm debating these Civs: Nubians, Kush, Greeks, various Arabian states (ie. like the Sabaeans). I'm debating also whether or not to change the start date to 3000 instead 4000.
 
One more thing. Unlike the SOI, I want to include non-RFC scenarios and maps representing or based off of various near eastern areas. This allows players to have "non-historical-ish" fun with the Civs.
 
TJtheTheologian said:
It's not intended to go that late in time. Essentially pre-Hellenistic Middle East. I played tested a few things and amply see the point about a cramped Levant. The Philistine will be Barbarians/Rebels and the Hebrews 1 Civ. In the Jordan area I'm trying to figure out if I should include one, some, or nome of Ammon, Edom, or Moab. Syria will be split between the Arameans and Phoenicians along with rebels representing the numerous Neo-Hittite states.
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That sounds good!

TJtheTheologian said:
I'm debating these Civs: Nubians, Kush, Greeks, various Arabian states (ie. like the Sabaeans). I'm debating also whether or not to change the start date to 3000 instead 4000.
Click to expand...
Egypt is kind of annoying already in how far it goes south, because it forces you to extend the map quite far south into useless and uniteresting areas of Arabia. While I think Kush is interesting, it's probably better to end the map at roughly the second cataract and represent the Kuhorsehockyes with barbarians / mercenaries.

And I think 3000 BC with Sumer and Egypt as starting civs is better than clicking yourself through 1000 AI-less and event-less years alone as Sumeria.

What exactly do you mean with your last post? Allowing people to play with your mod's civs without the RFC rules?
 
What I mean is, in addition to the "main" scenario (RFC) have along side that some maps representing places in the ANE (like Persia) and maps akin to it (like an oasis style map). These maps are like any regular civ game using the Civs from the ANE. It's sometimes fun to simply screw around in "non-canon" areas.

Example: Pharaoh Nebuchadnezzar II leads an army against the Elamites of Upper Egypt.
 
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