Ancient History Game that is NOT exclusive to only 1 region

[Carbon]

I see a lot of people want Rome II or an Ancient Greece game or some other region-focused game. I think this is silly, the only successful Paradox game that was region-specific was CKII and that was probably because it was set in the Middle Ages, which many people are familiar with. Instead, I thought of this idea:

An ancient history game that starts in 2,000 BC with the rise of Ancient Egypt as the Middle Kingdom and ends in 800 AD with the rise of Islam. The map would stretch from Europe and North Africa in the West, to China in the East.

There would be numerous start dates, some examples:

• 2,000 BC - Dawn of Civilization
  Ancient Egypt begins the Middle Kingdom
• 1,750 BC - The Bronze Age
  Rise of Yin in China and Babylon in Mesopotamia
• 1,450 BC - The Iron Age
  Mycenae in Greece and the Hittites use of iron weapons
• 1,250 BC - Exodus
  Early beginning of Judah and Phoenicia
• 775 BC - Antiquity
  Nubia, Etruscans, Carthage, Greek states and Assyria all rise
• 475 BC - Warring States
  Warring States in China, rise of the Achaemenid and war with the Greek states
• 275 BC - Hellenism
  The scrambled Hellenistic world left after Alexander's conquests
• 50 BC - SPQR
  Rise of Rome and the beginning of the era of Caesars
• 25 AD - The Cross
  Rise of Christianity
• 225 AD - Three Kingdoms
  Three Kingdoms era in China, Parthia in Persia, Satavahana in India
• 525 AD - The Dark Age
  Collapse of Rome and the Great Migration period
• 650 AD - The Star and Crescent
  Rise of Islam

There would also be a tribal mechanic to reflect gameplay for the numerous tribes that were not actually civilizations yet. Migrations and tribal government would play a big role as even tribes can conquest large empires. Tribes should also have the ability to eventually settle down and form civilizations of their own and this is where sandbox mechanics can be really fun as the civilization you would found as a tribe would be custom built; from religion to government and you would slowly develop it while facing the problems any ancient civilization would encounter.

Religion would also play a major role albeit very differently from any other Paradox game. There would be numerous religions; from monument-based Egyptian polytheism, cult-based Greek polytheism, imperial-based Roman polytheism, city-based Babylonian polytheism to Legalistic Confucianism/Taoism and meditative Buddhism and Hinduism and also monotheistic Judaism. All these religions and more will have the chance to rise, many will be civilization-specific but these religions can be developed through a tech-tree system and can become more aggressive in polysterizing others (amongst other things). I'd also add that custom religions should also be a thing when founding a new civilization as a tribe and through the tech-tree system, once could tailor-build their own religion. Will it be political? Maybe spiritual? Will it focus on converting other civilizations? Or is it more ethnic-based? Does it appeal to the common people or the ruling class? Is the emperor a god? Do high priests run the religion? etc. etc.

There would be similar global events like the Mongol invasions in CK2 that would occur, such as the rise of Christianity and Islam, or great plagues that would sweep and devastate many peoples, or the founding of new civilizations and empires but also the downfall of others.

I feel like such a game would be as uniquely different from other Paradox games as the other Paradox games are uniquely different to each other. However, there will be some influence from CK2 which I feel adds a lot of flavor and that is a character-based system. Though characters/dynasties would not be as central in this game as civilizations/tribes, characters still play a major role and add a lot more personality: nomadic leaders, conquerors, generals, philosophers, mathematicians, emperors, high priests, prophets, etc. etc. would play a big role in the game.

Finally I'll finish by saying that the game would be absurdly long if it went day by day like CK2. If it went day by day, this game would have 1,022,000 days from start to finish as opposed to CK2's 218,890 days. Thus this game will go week by week and it would have 145,600 weeks from start to finish, making it shorter than CK2 from 867 to 1453 but still a good length.

 

[Vedinu]

There are two reasons why it should be regional:

1. Politics were so different in different regions.
The game mechanics would need to be different around the map, which is something Paradox will not do.

2. You live in Canada? You might think Rome was a small place,
but in those days, that area was the world. It was huge.

So basically the game could not give proper gameplay for any area, due to lack of mechanics and provinces.




Edit: I would however like a game with this timeframe and that week by week speed.
The game just should be set in the same area as Crusader Kings II excluding northern areas,
and perhaps expanding a little to the east and to the south, but so that you'd be able to
convert your game to Crusader Kings II and play your nation from the "Dawn of Civilization"
to the period of Napoleonic Wars (and perhaps even further?)

 

[Marc_Octavian]

To my opinion we are missing the very important point here: Player mechanic

Charachter driven gameplay (CK2)
Or
Nation driven gameplay (Europa Universalis 4)
Or (probably)
Party driven gameplay (Victoria 3)

Now in OP suggestion, what is the mechanic? Who does player controll?

 

[Carbon]

There are two reasons why it should be regional:

1. Politics were so different in different regions.
The game mechanics would need to be different around the map, which is something Paradox will not do.

The same could be said of all Paradox games. You can play as Qing and the UK in V2 which are extremely politically different, or you can play as Muslims and Vikings in CK2, again, very different. Same basic mechanics could be used for all civilizations in the ancient world but with the most noticeable difference being between tribes and civilizations themselves.

2. You live in Canada? You might think Rome was a small place,
but in those days, that area was the world. It was huge.

There is quite literally no rational sense in the above quoted statement and thus I will leave it as is.

So basically the game could not give proper gameplay for any area, due to lack of mechanics and provinces.

I beg to differ as I explained above.

Edit: I would however like a game with this timeframe and that week by week speed.
The game just should be set in the same area as Crusader Kings II excluding northern areas,
and perhaps expanding a little to the east and to the south, but so that you'd be able to
convert your game to Crusader Kings II and play your nation from the "Dawn of Civilization"
to the period of Napoleonic Wars (and perhaps even further?)

I would like to do something similar but I do not want just Europe. I want Europe, North Africa, Middle-East, Central Asia, India and East Asia. This gives the player a wide variety of choice and can appeal to a greater number of people. Not to mention, having a game that includes China during the Warring States period, India throughout ancient history, Alexander's conquests, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome are all something that people want and this game can give it all.

I don't think it's practical for Paradox to make region-specific games, it makes little business sense to continue in that direction with the exception of CKII. However, an era-focused game like EU or Victoria but set in ancient history would be a wiser choice.

To my opinion we are missing the very important point here: Player mechanic

Charachter driven gameplay (CK2)
Or
Nation driven gameplay (Europa Universalis 4)
Or (probably)
Party driven gameplay (Victoria 3)

Now in OP suggestion, what is the mechanic? Who does player controll?

Civilization. Although it's possible to control a tribe that can create a civilization; so in essence a proto-civilization. Civilizations themselves can splinter off into different countries and the player may only control one of those countries but the civilization still accumulates prestige from other countries of the same civilization. It's like a dynasty of countries, though the most prestige is given to holding the largest empire for as long as possible (which would be the greatest challenge in the game; the era had the rise and fall of many civilizations).

As histoical examples of civilizations that splinter off: China during the warring states period, Macedonia after Alexander's death and Rome when it was split East and West.

 

[Vedinu]

There is quite literally no rational sense in the above quoted statement and thus I will leave it as is.

I did a lot of editing there so it seems I left my point out:
It would be stupid for some Greek nation to send for example diplomats
or just have anything to do with some Chinese nation in the game.
It would be unrealistic, so there would need to be areas in the game,
that would have no connection to each other.

However, because of a large map,
provinces wouldn't be really small so this Greek nation could expand to China or parts of it.
So unrealistic...

Better to make it a region-based game. However, let's face it: the game will never come.

 

[Carbon]

I did a lot of editing there so it seems I left my point out:
It would be stupid for some Greek nation to send for example diplomats
or just have anything to do with some Chinese nation in the game.
It would be unrealistic, so there would need to be areas in the game,
that would have no connection to each other.

I see your point, and perhaps there ought to be some sort of system in place where diplomatic contact between different countries can only take place if they are close enough to each other. It was known that Han China and Rome had some sort trade connection going mostly because Rome expanded so far east and Han expanded so far west that they weren't that far away from each other. However when it comes to the Greek states, they are too far to make contact with India, let alone China.

However, because of a large map,
provinces wouldn't be really small so this Greek nation could expand to China or parts of it.
So unrealistic...

Better to make it a region-based game. However, let's face it: the game will never come.

Well the provinces would maybe be EU-sized, or a little smaller since it's a smaller world. I don't see how it would be impossible for the Greeks to conquer China, the game would be a sandbox so what if Alexander never died so early? Or what if he had a successor that continued the conquest east to India and even China? After all, the Mongols conquered most of Eurasia and they were just a tribal group of nomads whose technological means was primitive and available in the ancient time period, so such an empire could very well be possible in ancient history. I'd add that a defining feature of this game would be not in creating large empires, but in maintaining one. There were numerous large empires that rose in the ancient time period but all of them eventually collapsed and this should be reflected.

As for the game never coming, well one can hope can't they?
There is clearly a demand from Paradox fans for some sort of ancient history game, most notably for Rome II but I've also seen demand for Ancient Greece, Ancient China, Ancient India, etc. and this can be one way to make a highly sandboxed game that would incorporate all such regions.

Let's face it, Morocco colonizing South America would be viewed as historically impossible but is in the realm of possibility in EUIV, so I would not say regional limitations would render this game impossible.

 

[Vedinu]

I see your point, and perhaps there ought to be some sort of system in place where diplomatic contact between different countries can only take place if they are close enough to each other. It was known that Han China and Rome had some sort trade connection going mostly because Rome expanded so far east and Han expanded so far west that they weren't that far away from each other. However when it comes to the Greek states, they are too far to make contact with India, let alone China.



Well the provinces would maybe be EU-sized, or a little smaller since it's a smaller world. I don't see how it would be impossible for the Greeks to conquer China, the game would be a sandbox so what if Alexander never died so early? Or what if he had a successor that continued the conquest east to India and even China? After all, the Mongols conquered most of Eurasia and they were just a tribal group of nomads whose technological means was primitive and available in the ancient time period, so such an empire could very well be possible in ancient history. I'd add that a defining feature of this game would be not in creating large empires, but in maintaining one. There were numerous large empires that rose in the ancient time period but all of them eventually collapsed and this should be reflected.

As for the game never coming, well one can hope can't they?
There is clearly a demand from Paradox fans for some sort of ancient history game, most notably for Rome II but I've also seen demand for Ancient Greece, Ancient China, Ancient India, etc. and this can be one way to make a highly sandboxed game that would incorporate all such regions.

Let's face it, Morocco colonizing South America would be viewed as historically impossible but is in the realm of possibility in EUIV, so I would not say regional limitations would render this game impossible.

Perhaps so. I'd still prefer a region-based one,
but of course I would buy something like this if it would ever come.

 

[yourworstnightm]

Eh, no. The glory of Paradox games are that they go indept into different government styles of different ages. A game covering almost 3000 years would have to generalize alot and lose the Paradox feeling.

And here region focus comes in as much as focus on specific eras. There's a reason there's no China in CK 2. China was veeery different from Europe and if China is in there would be less counties in Europe. If you want Greek City states well represented Greece need alot of provinces. So for a Classical era game a map that stretches from Italy to India would be enough and be able to focus on this area, and include many small States and provinces. A larger map would force more generalization, and less depth and accuracy.

 

[DrRansom]

To pull an idea from the "Next Paradox Game" discussion thread:

I think that an ancient civilization game, with provinces, will be a large missed opportunity.

Provinces in Paradox games assume that the player controls defined sections of ground. A province based Ancient Empires game would really act like Rome or Crusader King's III. The player would lose the sense of searching the ground for the optimal location to build a new civilization. Furthermore, EU IV provinces could be seen as the size of a nearly standard early Kingdom, before territorial consolidation. It would not be fun if the player has to control 1 - 3 provinces for his own game.

If you go to a continuous map, which would likely result in only a region being chosen, then the importance of geography re-asserts itself. The game would naturally encourage players to situate themselves along water sources, instead of applying a historically accurate but arbitrary 'infrastructure' bonus. A key element will be balancing economic purposes, central control, ease of communication, and ease of hostile attack. Furthermore, the game can use the continuous unknown space as a nearly constant source of Barbarians, bandits, etc.

The player will find it hard and expensive to fully pacify an area, which is fitting for the communication problems of historic empires. Those nations with high centralization, river valley civilizations, will naturally find themselves more amiable to empire building. While those areas with fragmented population, Greece, will naturally produce smaller city-states, by nature of the geography and communications difficulty.

A continuous map gives the chance to produce historical outcomes in a natural manner, because the map enforces on the player the sense of building in a geography. Provinces would abstract the geography too much.

 

[Carbon]

Eh, no. The glory of Paradox games are that they go indept into different government styles of different ages. A game covering almost 3000 years would have to generalize alot and lose the Paradox feeling.

And here region focus comes in as much as focus on specific eras. There's a reason there's no China in CK 2. China was veeery different from Europe and if China is in there would be less counties in Europe. If you want Greek City states well represented Greece need alot of provinces. So for a Classical era game a map that stretches from Italy to India would be enough and be able to focus on this area, and include many small States and provinces. A larger map would force more generalization, and less depth and accuracy.

Ancient societies were not that different from one another, compared to say the United Kingdom and Qing (Industrialized capitalist empire vs. bureaucratic dynastic empire) in 1845 in Victoria II; the difference is far wider with the latter than any two societies in the former. The Greek city-states might be the only exception as being very different than the ancient empires, but if a Classical game would be made, it would have to represent both empires, city-states and tribes regardless of whether it was localized in Eastern Mediterranean or North Africa-Eurasia. I do not think the game would be any more generalized than EU or Victoria; those games represent eras where there was much, much larger differences between societies and take place in a far larger area.

To be quite frank, the only greek city states that were of any major importance were Sparta, Athens and Thebes anyways.

Not to mention the impracticality of a region-focused game, it's a terrible business decision as EU:Rome has shown Paradox. We need something that represents variety. I would get rather sick of playing only Ancient Greek states all the time, what of Persia? Egypt? Sumer? Babylon? Phoenicia? China? India? Bactria? Celts? Nubians? Rome? Arabs? Israelites? Hittites? etc. etc. Lots of interesting choices that can be replicated with a 2800-year game. Remember, 2800 years in ancient history was not as profound as modernity (~400 years in EU a LOT more happened than from 2000 BC to 1 AD).

To pull an idea from the "Next Paradox Game" discussion thread:

I think that an ancient civilization game, with provinces, will be a large missed opportunity.

Provinces in Paradox games assume that the player controls defined sections of ground. A province based Ancient Empires game would really act like Rome or Crusader King's III. The player would lose the sense of searching the ground for the optimal location to build a new civilization. Furthermore, EU IV provinces could be seen as the size of a nearly standard early Kingdom, before territorial consolidation. It would not be fun if the player has to control 1 - 3 provinces for his own game.

If you go to a continuous map, which would likely result in only a region being chosen, then the importance of geography re-asserts itself. The game would naturally encourage players to situate themselves along water sources, instead of applying a historically accurate but arbitrary 'infrastructure' bonus. A key element will be balancing economic purposes, central control, ease of communication, and ease of hostile attack. Furthermore, the game can use the continuous unknown space as a nearly constant source of Barbarians, bandits, etc.

The player will find it hard and expensive to fully pacify an area, which is fitting for the communication problems of historic empires. Those nations with high centralization, river valley civilizations, will naturally find themselves more amiable to empire building. While those areas with fragmented population, Greece, will naturally produce smaller city-states, by nature of the geography and communications difficulty.

A continuous map gives the chance to produce historical outcomes in a natural manner, because the map enforces on the player the sense of building in a geography. Provinces would abstract the geography too much.

This does sound interesting and would make tribal gameplay more interesting as tribes didn't have borders yet played an incredibly important role in ancient history. In fact, most ancient history maps show most of the world still empty (2000 BC only "states" with borders were Egypt and Sumer and the Indus). If a tribe were to settle down, then it would get borders and begin expanding that way. Interesting idea, though this is an innovation to the current engine and thus my idea for an ancient history game is based on the Clausewitz Engine until a new version comes and we know of its capabilities.

 

[diegosimeone]

To be quite frank, the only greek city states that were of any major importance were Sparta, Athens and Thebes anyways.

Macedon, Chalkis, Egkomi, Kition, Knossos, Gortyn, Phocis, Corinth, Mycenae, Phthia, Pherae, Larissa and a bunch of other city-states would like to say hello.

 

[Jolt]

Macedon, Chalkis, Egkomi, Kition, Knossos, Gortyn, Phocis, Corinth, Mycenae, Phthia, Pherae, Larissa and a bunch of other city-states would like to say hello.

Mycenae aside, none of those are either city-states or aren't really that important.

 

[diegosimeone]

Mycenae aside, none of those are either city-states or aren't really that important.

Macedon... really?

Chalkis... probably the best seafarers & colonists of ancient Greece

Egkomi... one of the richest areas of the Levant

Kition... very important center of trade of antiquity

Knossos... not important? Really???

Gortyn... not very famous but one of the most well structured city-states and the most important city for the Romans in Crete

Phocis... ancient Greece's internal conflict wildcard. Not really important, but one of the most interesting.

Corinth... tough military, great politics, excellent location. Probably more 'important' than Thebes.

Phthia... birth place of the Hellenes(Greeks). Birthplace of Achilleus. Extreme importance.

Pherae... The city-state that almost changed history. One of the major 'what ifs' of history, "what if Pherae had decided to launch an offensive against Persia before Macedon did?"

Larissa... home of the greatest horsemen of all Greece. And one of the best sort of democracies out there.

Just because you don't know what the importance of someone is, it doesn't mean they are not important. If you were discussing a popularity contest, fair enough. But the 'importance' card is not really at play here. There's a lot more important city-states that I haven't mentioned obviously.

 

[Carbon]

Macedon... really?

Chalkis... probably the best seafarers & colonists of ancient Greece

Egkomi... one of the richest areas of the Levant

Kition... very important center of trade of antiquity

Knossos... not important? Really???

Gortyn... not very famous but one of the most well structured city-states and the most important city for the Romans in Crete

Phocis... ancient Greece's internal conflict wildcard. Not really important, but one of the most interesting.

Corinth... tough military, great politics, excellent location. Probably more 'important' than Thebes.

Phthia... birth place of the Hellenes(Greeks). Birthplace of Achilleus. Extreme importance.

Pherae... The city-state that almost changed history. One of the major 'what ifs' of history, "what if Pherae had decided to launch an offensive against Persia before Macedon did?"

Larissa... home of the greatest horsemen of all Greece. And one of the best sort of democracies out there.

Just because you don't know what the importance of someone is, it doesn't mean they are not important. If you were discussing a popularity contest, fair enough. But the 'importance' card is not really at play here. There's a lot more important city-states that I haven't mentioned obviously.

I mentioned Mycenae, though that takes place before antiquity. Corinth might be the only other one that is of importance. Macedon was a kingdom, not a city-state. The rest are definitely not as important as Sparta or Athens.

 

[CyaN]

Macedon... really?

Chalkis... probably the best seafarers & colonists of ancient Greece

Egkomi... one of the richest areas of the Levant

Kition... very important center of trade of antiquity

Knossos... not important? Really???

Gortyn... not very famous but one of the most well structured city-states and the most important city for the Romans in Crete

Phocis... ancient Greece's internal conflict wildcard. Not really important, but one of the most interesting.

Corinth... tough military, great politics, excellent location. Probably more 'important' than Thebes.

Phthia... birth place of the Hellenes(Greeks). Birthplace of Achilleus. Extreme importance.

Pherae... The city-state that almost changed history. One of the major 'what ifs' of history, "what if Pherae had decided to launch an offensive against Persia before Macedon did?"

Larissa... home of the greatest horsemen of all Greece. And one of the best sort of democracies out there.

Just because you don't know what the importance of someone is, it doesn't mean they are not important. If you were discussing a popularity contest, fair enough. But the 'importance' card is not really at play here. There's a lot more important city-states that I haven't mentioned obviously.

That post was very interesting, and also you have the best username ever and I'll agree with everything you post . Aupa Atleti!

 

[diegosimeone]

I mentioned Mycenae, though that takes place before antiquity. Corinth might be the only other one that is of importance. Macedon was a kingdom, not a city-state. The rest are definitely not as important as Sparta or Athens.

Sparta was not a "city-state" in the same definition either. The problem here lies with translation. The Greek term for "city-state" is Politeia. The term Politeia pretty much talked about a political entity. nothing to do with democracy etc. Kingdoms included...
While it's not really something that was very much in use by contemporary sources. They refered to these entities by their names. Sparta = Lacadaemonians, Athens = Athenians, Corinth = Corinthians, Macedon = Macedonians etc

 

[Carbon]

Sparta was not a "city-state" in the same definition either. The problem here lies with translation. The Greek term for "city-state" is Politeia. The term Politeia pretty much talked about a political entity. nothing to do with democracy etc. Kingdoms included...
While it's not really something that was very much in use by contemporary sources. They refered to these entities by their names. Sparta = Lacadaemonians, Athens = Athenians, Corinth = Corinthians, Macedon = Macedonians etc

For the sake of argument and to keep the topic relevant to an ancient game, let us say that all the polities in Greece during antiquity were of enough relevance to be make it in an ancient history game, I fail to see how this would be irreconcilable with making the game include a greater variety of ancient civilizations to play as. Take CKII for example, one day I want to play as a Western European noble and play the game of dynastic politics, another day I want to be a Muslim conqueror, and some other times also as a Pagan. Wouldn't an ancient history game be better served if it included a greater variety of regions than just, say the Mediterranean or just the Indian subcontinent?

 

[diegosimeone]

For the sake of argument and to keep the topic relevant to an ancient game, let us say that all the polities in Greece during antiquity were of enough relevance to be make it in an ancient history game, I fail to see how this would be irreconcilable with making the game include a greater variety of ancient civilizations to play as. Take CKII for example, one day I want to play as a Western European noble and play the game of dynastic politics, another day I want to be a Muslim conqueror, and some other times also as a Pagan. Wouldn't an ancient history game be better served if it included a greater variety of regions than just, say the Mediterranean or just the Indian subcontinent?

Depends on the period of time.
As for your question on ancient Greece, I already posted an idea I have on the issue on this very section. Times change. Back then, religion was non-existent really. I can't recall of any civilization that used religion as an excuse for war before the rise of Christianity. The dynasties and cultural differences in Greece could be revolved around the 4 major tribes, while you'd also have the Hittites, Etruscans, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Sardinians, Libyans etc who would have their own differences and in some cases sub-groups. The potential is huge no matter how big the map is.
Realistically, the map should include more than half of Europe, the whole of northern Africa and as south as modern day South Sudan (including wastelands for the Sahara) and as east as the Indus river valley (again, including wastelands in the Arabian peninsula etc).

Antiquity cannot be judged with modern conceptions. Consider CK2 uses some very modern conceptions where for example religion is a dividing line. It still is in most parts of the world and even in Europe despite the attempts to minimize its effects by the EU. What I mean is that CK2 is much closer to our society than antiquity was. They cannot be compared.

As for a purely Ancient Greece game like the one Slitherine had, well, it still has its magic. Internal politics in ancient Greece is something never seen before and even today so called experts are struggling to differentiate them from modern conflicts and make false assumptions over them.
While the Greeks did have a "national" identity, they pretty much despised their neighbors as much as foreigners in many situations. That common concept cannot really be explained by historians and they say that "civil war" was rather common in Greece. The reality is far away from that and it's rather hard to explain in a non-academic way, in a language other than Greek.

 

[Closet Skeleton]

The problem with antiquity and a game set in the entirety of Eurasia is that Empires were small until the late Iron Age. When you could justify an entire game in just Mesopotamia, you'd lost an awful lot by going for a larger scale.

I can't recall of any civilization that used religion as an excuse for war before the rise of Christianity.

Depends what you mean by 'rise' of Christianity. Sassanid Persia was partly the model for the Christianised Roman Empire and fought 'holy wars'. The Jewish revolt was mostly an ethnic thing but religion was a big part of the identity. Both of those are after the earliest possible founding of Christianity as a religion but before anyone would be fighting a Christian holy war or be fighting a defiantly Christian state.

Mycenae aside, none of those are either city-states or aren't really that important.

Doesn't matter if you're starting before 600 BC. That would be like saying you CK2 only needs to include important dynasties in the HRE like the Hohenzollerns and the Wittlesbachs. If Thebes isn't the dominant power you need to be able to represent every rival that could have become dominant instead.