JFD
Kathigitarkh
Casimir will need a State Religion, otherwise he would be unfairly advantaged in not having to deal with Piety.
Looking very good
One thing I'll point out for historical continuity is regarding aqueducts. Apparently the Valens Aqueduct which served Constantinople was still functioning in the period of this scenario making it the sole city in Europe that still enjoyed the privilege of public infrastructure. It was actually broken by the Byzantine army as it retreated behind the Theodossian Walls to stop the Avar invaders from climbing over the walls. But wiki says that is was fully repaired by Constantine V after 758 and maintained by later emperors and was still functioning after the city was sacked by the 4th crusade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valens_Aqueduct
Maybe you can class that as a World Wonder for Constantinople which gives it the sole advantage of having a functioning Aqueduct but with a hefty maintenance cost.
I'm not sure if any other Byzantine/Roman cities had functioning aqueducts by that stage. Perhaps other more knowledgeable historians can weigh in
I do know that Virtually every city & Province of the East Roman Empire except the suburbs of Constantinople behind the Theodossian Walls was sacked or plundered by the Avars, Persians and Arabs back in the 6-7th century (which includes Balkans, Macedonia, Thrace, most of Greece, Anatolia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt) so I'm not sure if other cities like Thessaloniki were able to rebuild more complex infrastructure.
Also if you are adding in BNW trade routes I'd also change the rules for food routes. Large scale transport of food basically ended once Alexandria was lost to the Romans and I'm not sure how much it recovered by the 11th century.
My suggestion therefore would be to change the Granary to a building which requires wheat for construction (in the same way that a Forge requires Iron). So its no longer a building that every city can build.
So only cities that have access to wheat can send a food via caravans and cargo ships. Wheat should be carefully placed on the map so it becomes like a strategic resource. This will also stop players from running massive food imports to their capitals to take advantage of certain social policies like Monarchy.
If there is a need for food buildings my suggestion would be to add hospitals and orphanages which can be purchased by faith. One of the distinguishing differences between classical antiquity society and medieval society is that ancient society had large public funded infrastructure, entertainment and some degree of social welfare (i.e. Romans dolled out grain to the population). By the medieval era the church and private enterprise had largely replaced the State organization so the poor would receive help from the church and guilds and universities replaced Nationally owned workshops and academies etc......
Sure, there were Aqueducts still in use, but the majority of them had become obsolete and/or damaged beyond repair (and IIRC the knowledge of how to construct Aqueducts was lost in the Dark Ages, but maybe that sounds a bit fanciful). Bathhouses accomplish the same goal, now, and, at least, fill out the Medicine tech.
I actually really love the idea of the Granaries requiring Wheat. Not so much the pre-placed Wheat though
. I'll have to ponder. If I were to add that functionality to Granaries, I could certainly pre-place the Wheat myself. Conversely, perhaps moving production could require Stone. That said, you shouldn't heed the vanilla policy trees. They were certainly have to be replaced. Further that said, it is a big change, and as Jan points could, could become too much of a distraction from the goals of the scenario.I opted to replace the Circus Maximus as the Happiness NW with the Winter Palace, because obviously building the Circus Maximus as a medieval state is rude. So it does free up the icon. That said, the Hippodrome was built way before the scenario begins and thus would have to be pre-placed - and Byzantium already starts wtih Hagia Sophia and the Parthenon (maybe Halicarnassus, too, can't remember).
Excellent. I'll throw some Jews into Thessalonica and Spain at the beginning of the scenario. Thanks.
I considered using H&P, but I opted not too. It would convolute the scenario too much, I feel, and I really would rather the mod only contain my stuff - with which I'm more familiar and in a better position to bugfix and adapt. I'd personally like to develop my own Health mod, if it were not for that it had already been done and I've already go far more interesting things to develop. That said, the Black Death shall certainly be an event.
, and it contributed majorly on the spark of the Renaissance.
