Scenario Project: Assyrian Empire

[Louis XXIV]

I have a map, now I need to add cities. I think the map looks fine, I haven't looked at it in any detail. I'm thinking of modifying it slightly because I'm not sure how geographically accurate it was for the time. The map was going to be mostly desert, but some was changed to plains for playability. I'm thinking of bringing back some desert, but changing some plains into better terrain. Also, I'll be adding some Marshes.

BTW, any maps of city placements (especially for Urartu, Media, and Elam) would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I'm not sure who to put in anatolia if this takes place after the Hittite empite collapsed.

A few random minor questions. For an Assyrian leaderhead, a possibility is Drift's leaderhead, which is animated, but not 3D. I could also use Firaxis' Gilgimesh leaderhead, which might work. The only other possibility I can think of is trying to convince someone else to make a 3D animated Assyrian leaderhead.

Another question. Should I use BeBro's Assyrian Chariot, or Aluminum's resized version of this Chariot? I personally think BeBro's bigger one looks fine, but some might think it looks small compared to the Egyptian Chariot Firaxis made.

 

[LouLong]

Here is a map of the Old Assyrian Empire and around.

As the map in the next post, it is in French but I think city names are understandable.

 

[LouLong]

And for the New Empire

 

[Louis XXIV]

OK, I'll place some cities. It looks like Tarsus and Carchemish weren't Assyrian until 717, so I guess I won't make them Assyrian. BTW, I never heard Khaleb, any idea what the English equivalent is?

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

Khaleb is probably Halab... Aleppo.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Ah, ok.

I've got the lands of Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt pretty much finished on the map. I need to have some idea of Urartu, Medes, Elam, Israel, Aramaean, and Phoenicia's territory, as well as who to put in Anatolia.

BTW, the map is pretty crowded (I probably should have asked for standard size). There is no way I can split Israel and Judah into seperate civs. The only place I can see room to have a civ is west of Medes, or possibly north of Urartu (Scythia), as well as Anatolia.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Google isn't being helpful, but given the location, I'm 90% sure Khaleb is indeed Aleppo.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

It's in the right position of Aleppo, and Khaleb is pronounced very similar to Halab.

 

[Mithadan]

I think it would be better to begin with Ashurnasirpal than with Tiglath-Pileser, unless there is a gameplay reason not to. I think Ashurnasirpal was the first great king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, although Tiglath-Pileser was probably the best of them all.

I'm not sure who to put in anatolia if this takes place after the Hittite empite collapsed.

Maybe Phygrians in the west and Neo-Hittite individual kingoms in the East???

Another question. Should I use BeBro's Assyrian Chariot, or Aluminum's resized version of this Chariot? I personally think BeBro's bigger one looks fine, but some might think it looks small compared to the Egyptian Chariot Firaxis made.

Boy, I'm out of the loop; I didn't know Aluminium did that. If you wanted to have an early and a late Assyrian chariot, you could have the smaller one for the early chariot and the bigger one for the later (heavy) chariot, I suppose.

There is no way I can split Israel and Judah into seperate civs.

Fair enough!

 

[Louis XXIV]

I think it would be better to begin with Ashurnasirpal than with Tiglath-Pileser, unless there is a gameplay reason not to. I think Ashurnasirpal was the first great king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, although Tiglath-Pileser was probably the best of them all.

I'm actually considering starting in 1115 BC. This is the reign of Tiglath-Pileser (the first one). This also represents the begining in a shift in military tactics for the Assyrians. Instead of relying on Chariots, they would use massed formations of levy infantry. Also, I kinda want to start as early as possible since the Assyrian Chariot looks so cool, and it gets obsolete somewhere around 800BC.

Originally Posted by Louis XXIV
I'm not sure who to put in anatolia if this takes place after the Hittite empite collapsed.

Maybe Phygrians in the west and Neo-Hittite individual kingoms in the East???

You wouldn't happen to have a magic book that would make my job a lot easier, with city names and map locations, would you?

Originally Posted by Louis XXIV
Another question. Should I use BeBro's Assyrian Chariot, or Aluminum's resized version of this Chariot? I personally think BeBro's bigger one looks fine, but some might think it looks small compared to the Egyptian Chariot Firaxis made.

Boy, I'm out of the loop; I didn't know Aluminium did that. If you wanted to have an early and a late Assyrian chariot, you could have the smaller one for the early chariot and the bigger one for the later (heavy) chariot, I suppose.

I think they look too similar for this (I didn't think BeBro's Chariot looked too big, so it must have been a minor change). And, I don't think I want to increase my download size too much. I think I'll leave it as an option (maybe I'll do the same with Drift's Ashurbanipal leaderhead).

Originally Posted by Louis XXIV
There is no way I can split Israel and Judah into seperate civs.

Fair enough!

I'm thinking of seeing if I can get Emperor (the guy who made my map) to make the same map in standard version (since I think I'll be able to fill the space). Somehow, I don't think this will be big enough, though.

BTW, speaking of the map, here is the Assyrian and Babylonian cities placed on the map, if anyone wants to take a look (and comment on either the cities itself, or something else in the map). I've started to add other cities, but those aren't necessarily where I finally want to put them. I also added some rivers that weren't originally there.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Here's the file (I guess I had to zip it).

One thing I'm considering is increasing the resistance rate. I think this actually does a fair job of representing Assyrian cruelty and the practice of relocation. If cites are going to require a large guarison, a player might be more ready to raize it. Also, since the game requires a percentage of both land area and population, the workers created from razing a city probably should be added to a new city. Finally, the city of Babylon was difficult to capture and would revolt often (which was a bad political thing).

 

[Mithadan]

You wouldn't happen to have a magic book that would make my job a lot easier, with city names and map locations, would you?

Heh-heh, I've got the Osprey Ancient Assyrians book and the Osprey Ancient Armies of the Middle-East (sounds like you've at least got the latter), but I don't think either are magical with city locations and whatnot! Plus, I only brought the latter book with me to North America (where I'll be for the next 6 weeks), so if the Assyrian book is what you need it will have to wait.

I've got a scanner here, though, for the next 3 weeks (which could prove handy).

Edit: I may not have brought my Assyrian book home with me, but the rest of my library is here including my historical atlases. I scanned every page that showed Anatolia around the time of the Hittites and Phygrians; there should be a few city names and locations in there to use. They're all in bitmaps that I zipped together. Hope they help somewhat: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/AnatoliaMaps.zip

I'm actually considering starting in 1115 BC. This is the reign of Tiglath-Pileser (the first one). This also represents the begining in a shift in military tactics for the Assyrians. Instead of relying on Chariots, they would use massed formations of levy infantry. Also, I kinda want to start as early as possible since the Assyrian Chariot looks so cool, and it gets obsolete somewhere around 800BC.

Ach, you don't have to obsolesce the chariots so early. Assyria never stopped using chariots simply because they started using cavalry:

Tiglath-Pilseser III increased the strength of the chariot corps by adding a third crew member to each chariot, and the trend towards bigger and heavier chariots continued under Ashurbanipal, who added a fourth man to each crew. By his reign, therfore, the chariot corps had lost much of its speed and manoeuvrability, but, combined with the rapid growth of the cavalry arm, this reform meant that the Assyrian army now had a large proportion of its men mounted either on horseback or in chariots, and was thus able to strike suddenly by moving large numbers of men at greater speed than their enemies.
Terence Wise, Ancient Armies of the Middle East (Oxford: Osprey, 1981), p. 34.

You could start the scenario with the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (the names of those first kings preceding Ashurnasirpal elude me) and still use BeBro's chariot. It's a generic design, after all, and needn't only represent an early Mittani-influenced design.

 

[Louis XXIV]

The link doesn't work.

BTW, any information you have (and pictures too) would be greatly appreciated.

I haven't thought much about the tech tree (I did a little, and couldn't come up with much). I'll probably think about it some more later, but I'll consider different types of Chariots to represent the progression of Chariots. It would be nice if I could represent the various cavalry tactics as well (as they progressed from having a shield guy riding nearby to going solo, but I have only Kryten's Horse Archer to use for a Horse Archer, and nothing to represent any kind of Heavy Cavalry, unless I use Steph's conversion). I suppose I could recycle graphics (like the Rise of Rome scenario's Legion I, Legion II. Maybe I'll give it more creative names).

 

[Mithadan]

Yeah, sorry about the link. Uploading it isn't quite working for some reason, must be my parents' old computer or something (high-speed satelite connection on a P2 with not too much RAM)? Anyhow, I'll try later or I could email them to you or something.

Gotcha on the chariot progression. Maybe for the early chariot-style cavalry (shield bearer -- archer pairs) you could do a kind of multi-unit? Oh, and in addition to Kryten's horse archer, I think there is at least one (even two) horse archers in Steph's conversions -- or were they what you were referring to by heavy cavalry?

Edit: whoops, I guess the reason why the upload didn't work was because the zip file was 45 megs. 'Spose I'll have to turn them giant bitmaps into jpegs!

 

[Louis XXIV]

I guess so, because 45 megs is a lot!

That was what I was refering to by heavy Cavalry. There is a Perthale Horse Archer that looks fairly Assyrian, and there's the Assyrian Cavalry. Unfortunately, both these units don't look very "civvy". They could work, but I'm thinking about the possibility of not including them.

 

[Mithadan]

Well, it would be a shame not to use them if we were in need of graphics, anyhow.

I jpeged those maps and zipped them into separate archives. Hope it works this time!

Hammond Atlas of World History
Hammond Atlas of Bible Lands
Oxford Atlas of World History
Ancient Armies of the Middle East

 

[Louis XXIV]

Thanks a lot. I still seem to have some problems filling in the areas around Assyria and Babylon (mainly Urartu)

 

[Yoda Power]

if you post the map I can place Urartu cities. I have that map of Urartu in a book so I cant post a pic.

 

[Louis XXIV]

The 11th post from the top (8th above this one) has a biq file with Babylonian, Egyptian, and Assyrian cities. I haven't had a chance to work on it much, so that one is fairly up to date.

Unfortunately, the map doesn't have much room for cities around Lake Van, but even rough approximations would be fine for most important Urartuan cities.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I'm thinking I'll definately have to see about getting a bigger map. There's no way a small map should have 10 players (Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Medes, Urartu, Phygria, Israel, Phoenicia, Elam, Aramaeans). There are a few areas I would have trouble filling, but I'm having trouble filling them anyway. Now I'll just have to ask nicely about a bigger map.

I'm also thinking about wonders to include.

Egypt will have the Pyramids already built (I'm not sure what to make them do, though, I might use the Granary effect).

Here are some of the ones I'm thinking of adding for people to build:

Library of Ashurbanipal
Hanging Gardens (technically after or at the very end of the game, but I'm including it anyway)
Ishtar Gate (see above)
Epic of Gilgamesh

Maybe a few others.