Thats interesting that you added them, I would have seen them more as a minor faction, that you could have added, rather than a full out civilization. The very fact that they did not exist for very long (only 190 years), plus the fact that they were overshadowed by the Sassanid Persians and Mauryan Indians further makes them insignificant in the overall scope of things. I would therefore instead replace them with the far more significant
Kushan Empire and
Gupta Empire, especially the Gupta's who persided over an Indian Golden Age of scientific advancement and cultural affluence and a recall to Hinduism, as the Mauryans had been Buddhist. Not to mention both these states survived FAR longer than the Indo-Greeks did. It should be remembered for example that it was the Kushans would build the Bamiyan Buddhas, and become very rich due to the silk road. Overall there are a lot more ways to integrate these two great Empires then the vaguely mentioned Yuezhi and Indo-Greeks, who seem to have play little to no role in shaping the area, while the two largest Empires of the time the Kushans and the Guptas are left out.
PS. Also the
Yuezhi it seems were a nomadic people who migrated around Central Asia for some 54 years only, I mean really civ-addicted, don't you think the Kushans who were great patrons of the arts and trade who lasted hundreds of years should be represented rather than the Yuezhi who at best can be represented by a minor state or barbarian cities. In my opinion they are not important enough either (along with the Indo-Greeks) to warrant having a place in this mod, which focuses on such a wide timeframe.
First of all, i mentioned some days ago that those civs that didn't do well in history are the most interesting for me, and thinking of how the Yuezhi kept my interest from day one there is really no way ever that i will remove them.
I made resurrections to work again, and some civs get a special respawn; one of the is the Tocharians to respawn as Kushana, so they will be represented in the future. They won't be playable though; Leoroth scared the poop out of me as he told me that the Italian respawn took immense effort to work
Maybe someday there will be a modmod that adds more civs, but i didn't plan that in the near future. I usually try to favor personal life, and there is about to happen a lot in the next year for me.
Black Whole introduced the Greeks, and he had them planned as unplayable Seleucids; i found it unbearable unsatisfying that the game didn't allow me to play them, so i gave them everything they needed, and, step by step, they accidentally became what they are now. Not to mention that i'm trying to make a LH for them is showing that they have a sincere place in my heart
On the global context, they do have a minor place, but, well, they are fun to have, and of course to play.
So summarized, i won't delete an interesting civ, but i also won't add a boring civ out of pure historicity.
I'm still figuring out how i should add Gupta. There are three options:
- Maurya to changing to Gupta when they adopt Hinduism
- scripted collapse of Maurya, scripted respawn as Gupta.
- Full blown civ.
Adding them would gnaw at my conscience because i told other requesters that i won't adding any more civs. But having them would result in a possibly more balanced and historical Northern India, adding some challenge for the civs around that area. There is some art flowing around...
...
I'd have to delay the Beta...and i also didn't want to spend that much time anymore...i just don't know...
Can everyone live with a delayed Beta which is possibly buggier and more unbalanced than expected?
Another aspect I wanted to talk to you about was Japan. To make Japan more interesting, I would recommend having an independent Kyoto, or whatever the Capital is, and have an Emperor who resides there. You could then have different minor Japanese states, that pop up ever once in a while, to break up Japan, forcing the player to reunite Japan, and recapture the Emperor unit, who must stay where ever the capital is. Currently it seems that Japan is too passive sitting on its own island, with little competition over the grand scheme of time.
That seems like a lot of work to make a civ that doesn't totally suck more interesting. Sorry, but no.
Although I still disagree with animals, its your mod, so if you feel its necessary then fine, but I would like to stress the inclusion of historically accurate barbarian movements and invasions, rather than random invasions. You should name barbarians, so their called Yuezhi Horsearcher or Jurchen Rider, or whatever. Following on this, the inclusion of province system, might be in order, as it has a lot of benefits when it comes to creating a historical mod. Creating provinces would have the added affect of making UHV's more interesting, it would make mercenaries easier to implement (restrict them to certain provinces), city placement, conquering whatever would all be more simplified if you had border provinces and core provinces. Overall this would create a lot funner game to play, if you had such dynamic regions that would change between Empires and Kingdoms.
Don't you know that there are millions of things out there that's trying to kill you that aren't human?
I already said that i'm not trying to make provinces; it's a great concept that caused a revolution in RFC modding, as i see. I simply say that it's a way too huge effort
now. Not on my watch, sorry.
Mercenaries have been here, but they have been removed by request (i think it was me, and merijn backed me up), and there wasn't any complaints so far. Except for Turkish mercenaries by Tang (Battle of Talas) and the Ghulam (who are the Ghaznavid UU), they wasn't that important either.
As for the background, you are free to pick whichever one you would like. I mean no offense to Merjin, they were nice placeholders, but they are kind of hard to look at. Also the loading screen one is ok-ok, it could be better, and I would recommend the Indian (South Asian) one or the one of the Chinese army charging, both of them in my opinion make good loading screens, while the Nomadic Horse Archer would make a good background. Overall just look for something professional looking, without too glitzy font, thats easy to read. Even Embryodead's minimalist background for SoI, with just a desert was quite amazing, considering that it was just an image of a desert. So thats my two-cents on it.
Don't worry. I also think it's quite hard to look at. When I picked it, I just thought it was a nice picture. I didn't take in mind that it's hard to look at it. The background should be changed indeed.
That said, in my opinion one of the battle depictions are even harder to look at than the current title screen.
I think the title screen should be something that's not too complex but conveys the general topic of the mod, while the loading screen can be a historical depiction.
I love SoI's main screen, because it manages to be excellent in all it's simplicity. A desert and letters. Genius. I doubt that i can come up with something like that without actually copying it.
I'm trying to have multiple designs for every culture so as few people as possible are unhappy
If someone could find a good painting from SE Asia, that'd be great. Also, does anyone know a font that looks like
Mongol script?
PPS. Please upgrade the detail of the map/terrain and the resources, including camels, as they look quite bad overall. There are several modcomps which make terrain look a LOT nicer. Here is one that I have implemented into RFC and vanilla BtS that makes the terrain and water a lot nicer to look at:
I thought the Terrain graphics are the same as in SoI?
I'll try something about the camel graphics; it shouldn't be too hard to give them some motion, and even if i have to use the ones the horse uses.
I rarely hit into the same mould as The Turk regarding civs that (capital letters) HAVE to be in for historical reasons, but I agree on the Guptas as a proper civ for the reasons already mentioned, golden age of India and whatnot.
Well, pretty much this.
I'm crossing fingers that it stays that way.
Thinking of SoI, the two years it's alive to be where it is now is a long time...
