Fleshing out the minors

[Gurkhal]

This is a thread for ideas about additions to minor nations, at start, so that they can get some flavor and make them interesting to play.

I hope to be able to throw in some interesting stuff in regards to Thebes, Athens, Sparta, Messenia, Troizon, Corinth, Megara and Argos, at least. But I don't promise anything and if anyone has ideas, please feel free to post them as well.

Anyway, first out is Thebes.

Thebes

House of Kadmos - An event where a person shows up and its rumored this person is a direct descendent of Kadmos, the founder of Thebes. The player can let the ruler marry this character and so change the ruling family name to "Kadmidae" (or what it should be in proper ancient Greek at this time) and gain the personality trait "Bloodline of Kadmos" with bonuses to Oratory and Finess, and if the ruler is of this bloodline then gain Casus Belli on all Boiotia and a bonus to the family's prestige.

If possible this could only be fired one time during the game and so not milked by every new family that gets to rule Thebes.

Distant friends - An event with visitors from far away and the player's ruler can get friends and positive relations with Levantine or Persian character or state. The fluff itself may be a minor member of such a state's elite, a merchant or something else.

Curse of blindness – An event where interaction between characters are affected by a blindness, in one way or another, of the participants leading to unforeseen results. Not seldom of a tragic nature but some times also to joy and prosperity. The common thread should however be that just like Pentheus, Oedipus and Creon are all blind to what they are doing, and stumbles into disaster when the truth is finally revealed to them so the characters come into situations where unforseen consequences lies behind seemingly obvious solutions to the situations.

Just like with the "House of Kadmos" it would be nice if there are several different situations, and none can be brought up more than once in a single game, and all of them will not show up in a single game either.

Melting pot: Kadmean culture: Mix between Greek and Levantine in a state with both Boiotian and Levantine cultures, and ruled by Thebes or where a ruler of Thebes is married to a spouse of the Levantine culture. Possibly allowing the player to decide if the Kadmean culture should lean towards the Greek or Levantine part of its composition.

 

[Gurkhal]

First up, no notes on the first half. You're absolutely spot on about the impacts of disease in this period, that CK2's Reaper's Due is a good place to start with modeling it, and to take advantage of roads and ports as pathways of spread.

I, however, would take a different direction in how to model disease risk and prevention, one centering on pop cap. As you note, hospitals are a deeply anachronistic system, as the closest parallel would be temples and shrines where the sick would petition their gods and could receive some level of treatment. While it's not unreasonable to, say, replace the province loyalty buff of Great Temples with a Disease Resistance bonus, a dedicated hospital bonus wouldn't make much sense.

Instead, I'd focus on the real response of the period to disease - sanitation. This is already roughly covered in-game through the aqueduct building, and I don't see a need to create a "sewer" building that would feel rather "same-but-for-the-other-end." While we could attach disease resistance modifiers to aqueducts, pop cap vs. population could be directly leveraged to model disease risk. Cities already tend to run close to their cap thanks to high migration attraction, necessitating extra aqueducts. If base disease risk were equal to population / pop cap, densely populated areas without sufficient infrastructure would be penalized, while low-density or good-infrastructure areas would be largely spared.

This would have the added benefit of making starving provinces at massive risk of disease, while having diseases inflict similar pop cap penalties would drive outmigration from afflicted areas, spreading the disease (starvation migration is very powerful). It would also minimize the number of systems grafted onto the core population system

I'm glad we can agree on most stuff as I agree with what you write save some in regards to "hospitals".

In regards to "hospitals" maybe I was a bit unclear but I used "hospitals", within quotation marks, as a short hand for secular doctors, physicians and healers who were not, or only partially, part of a religious or magical treatment for sickness. Hence the idea that you can build a "hospital" as a short hand for investment into the newfangled medical professions and that these practiciners of medicine will gradually build up a greater knowledge and set of functional treatments, thus their growing effect, on and against sickness while a primarily religious or magical treatment is unlikely to be improved across time.

Sorry if I confused by the use of the term "hospital".

 

[Gurkhal]

More Sea Wolves

This will be a bit of a contraversial suggestion but I would advice that since a player is very likely to be able to advance the played tag further than happened historically Germanic culture tags dwelling at significent coastlines should have the essential option to get into the business of sea-born raids, or turn into Vikings with another words. An option which could be extended to other cultures and tags.

I am aware that slave raiding is available to the Greek military tradition and tags with the "Pirate Heritage", unless I recall incorrectly. But I think that other military traditions like the "Barbarian" one should also feature this. Sea raiding has pretty much always been a big thing along the coastlines that I am aware of and so allowing more tags to potentially engage in it would make sense to me.

My examples for sea-born raiding both in and outside the Mediterranean would be the Illyrians and Cicilians in the Classical Antiquity and the Germanic Saxons (hence part of my suggestion) in Late Antiquity. And further down the line in the Middle Ages we naturally have more non-Norse raiders in the Baltic Sea, like the Wends, as well as the Corsairs in the Mediterranean in addition to the perhaps most famous sea raiders of the Norse Vikings.

As as side note I also think that the whole raiding mechanic could be expanded and improve for raiding both on land and at sea.

 

[Gurkhal]

Expanded philosophy

While there's an event chain where someone can get tutorship from a philosopher I think that this can and should be expanded in two ways.

The first one is the introduction of traits telling that a character has adopted a philosophical school as a way of life, thus giving some pros and cons from that. An Epicurean character might for example be more suitable to be a governor while a Cyrenaic might have a rising corruption if left to his or her own devices. A Neoplatonist might work well as a high priest but a Stoic might not be all that good at winning the loyalty of a province, but work pretty well as a general and so on. With modifiers and events coming up from this its something which I think would have good potential. Just like Athens I would imagine that players can also support a philosophical school which would give them certain gains.

The second thing, and perhaps more likely to cause raised eye brows, is that a philosophical school could be adopted to shape society and state. The closest to this in history is of course the Pythagoreans in Kroton and Dion in Syracuse. And while a fair bit of a meme project, or at least potentially such, I would think that it could be an interesting way for veteran players to take a tag down a new path.

 

[Gurkhal]

Here's an idea that's pretty much explicity made for a successor to Imperator as it would require a significent re-work of how certain tags work. Namely nomadic ones.

Actually Nomadic Tags

My basic suggestion is that instead of living like settled communities with holding territories and limited POP movement, nomadic tags, here primarily associated with the steppe, would be moving between territories and provinces with all their POPs and herds (as a basis for their economy and such) which would together with a new raiding mechanic work for a very different playstyle based on movement of the tag across the map, quickly absorbing other nomadic groups and force tribute from settled populations.

Some of this would be possible to recreate with a migratory tribe but I personally think that it could be and should be developed far beyond that scope.

 

[Gurkhal]

Some more suggestions for Imperator. This time its two general ones and a suggestion related to the poleis of "Greece proper".

I was planing on writing a pretty long and detailed post but decided against it due to me wanting this post to be readable.

Paths through Life

So the first suggestion is that a character have, outside of following a mission tree, a fairly silent existance. They don't do alot of things and while that works for many people I personally loves character interaction and so would like to see more developed on this front. Hence I suggest that based on culture and religion (its a bit difficult to separate the two in antiquity given how they are closely intermixed but anyway) characters have events and make choices that affects them. Granted this will mostly be an issue for monarchies and potentially tribes but I think it could be made to work in republics as well even with a change in leadership and thus rapid turnover in what character are in charge and thus is "played".

I will take examples for this from the Greeks, angling towards Athens but that's what we have to go with. Other cultures would per necessity offer different life paths which should also add to the difference in playing tags from different cultures and perhaps even playing tags of the same culture.

What I thus propose is that there are some stages in a characters life when they do or are expected to do some things and depending on how that turns out they can get, or not get, traits and modifiers and so on. I was planning on writting up a long desciption about the details but stayed my hand because I want this post to be readable.

But what I will write is that characters start as toddlers, become children where the basis of their personality and education are laid, grow into youths where the final parts from the childhood are laid down along with introduction into society at large, such as political and philosophical debates, martial training, observing legal causes and so on. Finally adulthood and middle age where they operate at fullest in society before old age comes in and they start to take more of a councillor than before, as well as reaping essentially what they have sowed earlier in life. Possibly ending with retirement from public life if they would life to a stage where their health permanently don't allow them continued activity in the public sphere.

Character Mercenary Service, and Nepotism

This is an idea that if you've got a mercenary group based on your territory you can let a character join up with that mercenary band for gain in martial skills and various traits, both good and bad, at a risk to life and health, for some years serving as a mercenary, or just become a mercenary and be gone for 4-5 years before they return, or don't return and are presumed dead. It seems weird to me that warriors from many cultures earned a good set of coin from fighting in the wars of the Mediterranean world but we have little ability to take part in this ourselves as an employed part. Thus I see an oppertunity for characters to get involved.

Same could also possibly be done with nepotism in allowing young characters without an office of their own to tag along with relatives or friends of relatives so that they can learn the military or political craft before they can an office themselves.

Hellenic Poleis in a Great Whole, and perhaps Rome

Finally I think that territories in Greece should have a modifier, hidden or not that makes them have a minus to province loyalty to represent the many wars fought between poleis before the game starts and then wars and rebellions against both Macedonians and Romans in order for these communites to not have to accept a permanent political overlord. Freedom of the Greeks was certainly a catchy propagande term but one which seems to have resonated very well in Greece if the repeated attempts to claim or retain that freedom gives us any clue as to what, at least the leaders of, these communites wanted.

The same modifier might also be extended to Rome and some other rebellious parts of the ancient world that also seemed to be particularly unwilling in getting the message that they had been conquered.

 

[Gurkhal]

Decline and Revival

In the past we've talked about having some form of malus or such for huge empires to prevent blobs from totally steamrolling the map at will and make runninga a huge empires something which is a challenge and not something that gets progressively easier.

My suggestion is to have a "revival" mechanic working with a "decline" mechanic so that the player can strive to not just manage a decline or a phase of downturn for a hard won empire but also know there's light at the end of the tunnel. Since I don't know how a "decline" mechanic would work its hard to say how a "revival" mechanic would work in more details but I think that something along the lines of the ups and downs of the Roman empire, or for that matter ancient Egypt, or severla other empires could be used as a model to simulate that great empires can go into periods of things not going too well but also that things can be turned around for said empire as opposed to an unstoppable decline and fall from a zenith.

Hopefully a purposeful "revival" mechanic can make things more fun for the player to tackle "decline" phases as I've understood that's a main concern for Paradox as to why they don't add decline or internal decay/problems to mega empires in their games.

 

[Gurkhal]

Its been some time since there was something new in this thread and so I'll throw in a minor suggestion.

Roman Military Tradition

The suggestion is that Rome should have a unique military tradition which only it, and anyone who can integrate Roman cultural POPs and/or allow those who has some form of interaction with Rome to partially gain access to represent that many Hellenistic states seems to have adopted parts of the Roman way of fighting when the Manipular Legions scored victory after victory over the Makedonian Phalanx, has access to and that it would allow it to developed the very powerful heavy infantry-dominated armies that won Rome its empire.

Given that Rome was made of different matter than its competitors during the timespan of the game and thus should perhaps have oppertunities to simply outperform what other tags could do with the same resources both as a player's choice and as a "big baddie" for a human player it makes sense to me to add extra feature to Rome.

And most people should know that I am by far not a Roman fanboy.

 

[Gurkhal]

I haven't written in this thread for a while but I've now decided to change that. So here comes a suggestion which is primarily aimed at the Invictus mod.

Chemosh, Milkom, the Ammonites and the Tophet.

Both Chemosh and Milkom are gods currently in the Culture category in the Canaanite religion but I find that is an ill-fit as Chemosh seems more connected with war from what I've read. There is no Ammonite culture despite historical sources telling us they were around in 167-160 BC. And finally I think that the concept of tophet can should be a law and not an invention.

I hope to be able to return to these topics in the future with alot more details and stuff as this is kind of bare bones.

But what I suggest is as follows.

Chemosh

Chemosh is moved to the War category and gets the following effects: Passive - Slow down Experience Decay, Omen - +10% to Besieging (maybe a bit much but there you have it).

The passive effect is something which I left alone but I base the omen ability on the Mesha Stele where a king of Moab boasts of Israelite towns he has captured with the help of Chemosh. That sounds to me like a solid reason to make Chemosh a god that can help with sieges.

Mesha Stele - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Milkom

Milkom remains in the Culture category and gets the following effects: Passive - Citizen happiness, Omen - +10% to Fort Defences OR a -5/10% build cost for buildings.

I base the passive effect on the idea that placating Milkom/Moloch would have made people feel more confident about the future as in "We've given something of great value to the god, and he will return something of great value to us." according to a reciprocal principle. Anyway, I then base the omen effect on the Amman Citadel Inscription which I get the sense that it is about a fortification but I could of course be wrong on this.

Amman Citadel Inscription - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ammonites

According to wiki, at least, there's mentioning of the Ammonites being present to try to resist the Maccabean king between 167 BC and to 160 BC. Thus it feels very odd that the old homeland of the Ammonites are exclusively inhabited by either Hebrew or Aramaic pops, all of them with the Israelite religion. I would suggest that in some of these territories the population is given a new culture, "Ammon", and probably made to have the Canaanite religion as well. If the Ammonites should remain a part of Judea at game start or some other solution would be better I leave unanswered since I don't have a clear vision on that matter but someone else might have a better idea for that part.

Ammon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Tophet

Finally I would suggest that tophet sacrifices, called directly "Child Sacrifices" in the game, should not be an invention that one introduces since it both feels odd to have something perhaps 700 year old, or more, be an invention to be discovered. Instead I would suggest that a law where one can allow or forbidd the practice would seem more reasonable.

And I also find that this could work better for RPiing if one is so inclined. And if one really wants to go deeper in this it could be a building unique to Phoenician and Punic tags that brings effects, possibly in exchange for a small decrease in population growth.

Tophet - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Gurkhal]

A suggestion for an event chain

Prophecy of a Usurper

Stele of Shamshi-Adad V of Assyria. No special reason, I just wanted some nice picture to go with the post.

This would be an event chain that there's a prophecy that circling around among people for someone who will become king/ruler/whatever of the tag. The conditions for the prophecy fits pretty, according to rumor, well on a young noble.

The player can then attempt to stop the prophecy by either killing the youth or ensure that parts of the prophecy don't come about in some less tyranny-producing way. I figure that just killing this youth would lead to alot of tyranny. If the player successfully gets rid of the prophecy or coopts the youth, like for example adopting him and make him heir or something else, to serve the present ruler and system rather than overthrow it then one is safe from more problems. If one fails then one gets a rebellion and potental civil war on one's hands, depending on the state of the tag.

In ancient history there's several conquerors who are prophecized to overthrow current rulers and the rulers often gets to know this from a dream and unsuccessfully attempt to stop the prophecy. These prophecies were most likely created and spread after someoe had become a great conqueror but if one assumes that the standard position in the ancient world was to think that prophecies were a real thing then it seems to me that such things which ended up in failure couldn't have been all that rare to pop up now and then.

 

[Gurkhal]

Civic Virtues

I think I've mentioned this concept before on this thread but I will do so again and now in a bit more developed form.

The basic idea is to remove National Ideas with its rather limited options and set numbers and instead introduce "Civic Virtues" which are heavily inspired by cultural traditions from Crusader Kings 3. The main reason is to give more flexibility, focus on the changing and flexible nature of the ancient world and also allow the player another non-military aspect of the game to fiddle around with. Instead of National Ideas we would get a significant number of different Civic Virtues, some general, some specific, some freely available, some with prerequisites but a significent number of them to play around with.

These Civic Virtues would be per tag and come in four different categories: Military, Oratory, Finess and Zeal, in accordance with established categories in Imperator. Military would naturally be of a military nature, Oratory would affect POPs, culture and so on which are directly affecting the population of the tag, Finess would be non-population aspects like institutions, government, economy etc. while Zeal would handle more abstact concepts like religion, philosophy, mentality and so on. Some overlap between the categories would be unavoidable. Civic Virtues could be from strictly historical, anarchronistic, alt-historical to outright meme-territory.

A tag would be able to have as many Civic Virtues as they would like, in fact all of them which would be possible if one would so choose, BUT introducing a new one comes at the cost of number of existing Civic Virtues times by 3 with a bse cost of 300 "Points", like political influence or stability or whatever would work. So if you've got 3, you'll pay 900 Points for a fourth. But you can also abolish Civic Virtues which means that instead of having to pay 900 "Points", you can get rid of a Civic Virtues which you don't find very useful anymore and instead get the price for the Civic Virtue you are looking for down to 600 "Points". The exact details I've laid out here are not terribly imporant but the concept of establishing Civic Virtues, rising costs for new ones and ability to abolish Civic Virtues are something which I think would be a foundation for this.

The relation between Civic Virtues, laws, heritage and inventions would be as follows. The heritage is the overarching basis for a tag and sets the foundation for how the tag leans in regarding to these things. Laws act as the framework to determine which Civic Virtues are most effective and which ones are falling behind. Civic Virtues then works as the filling within the framework. And finally inventions works as boosts to the other three categories and would probably take a slight backseat towards the others, primarily as I understand the ancient world where reforms and new approaches was a more common thing than having old solutions work better due to technological advances.

Example: Say that I play as Thebes and I'm ready, or even feel compelled, to move from a levy to a professional army as my tag has expanded in the Aegean area. Previously I've invested in two Military Civic Virtues, "Citizen Soldiers" and "Lovers-in-Arms". But I can see that if I go for a professional army in the laws section it will render Citizen Soldiers ineffective as that Civic Virtue primarily affects a levy. Thus I pass the law for a professional army and then abolish the "Citizen Soldiers" Civic Virtue and with a reduced cost, I can get something like "Oath of Loyalty" which reduces the chances for cohorts to become loyal to their commander. Thus I used laws to change the framework for how my army would function and then tuned it further by getting rid of a Civic Virtue which wasn't helpful anymore and instead got a Civic Virtue which I would have more use for in this new framework.

EDITED: Presumably one could also call it "Civic Traits" instead of "Civic Virtues"

 

[Gurkhal]

Almost forgot about Military Traditions.

I would say that Military Traditions are either folded into Civic Virtues OR that Civic Virtues under the Military category deals with things like manpower, morale and such while Military Traditions are about damage, discipline, defence and the more concrete parts for the fighting.

 

[Gurkhal]

Here comes a few suggestions for some new achivements centered on the three cultures in present day Nordic countries. There's a Norse theme to them but I figure that it could still fit as a "wink, wink" addition.

Achivements with a proto-Viking theme

East Aros - Make a city with a Holy Site and at least three barrows* for rulers in Uppland, as a tag with Suioni culture as primary culture.

Barrow-Kings - Construct barrows* for ten rulers in a row. With a tag with Gutoni, Suioni or Raumarician primary culture.

The Ways of the Sons of Our Sons - Conduct 45 Slave Raids. With a tag with Gutoni, Suioni or Raumarician primary culture.

Jewel of the North -Create a metropolis in Uppakra. With a tag with Gutoni, Suioni or Raumarician primary culture.

Vaccation in the Sun - Become migratory, settle and place your capital on the shore of the Mediterranean and keep it there for at least ten years. After which you become migratory again and return north and place your capital in present day Denmark or Scandinavia as a tag with Gutoni, Suioni or Raumarician primary culture.

The King in the North - Unify Scandinavia and Denmark. With a tag with Gutoni, Suioni or Raumarician primary culture.

Travel Brings People Together - Have a city or metropolis in Scandinavia or Denmark with slaves from at least ten different non-Germanic cultures at the same time. With a tag with Gutoni, Suioni or Raumarician primary culture.

AD or AUC? It Looks the Same to Me! - Conquer present day England before AUC 865 (Probably only possible with an extension of the timeline that the games goes on). With a tag with Gutoni, Suioni or Raumarician primary culture.

*****

*Extra addition: Build barrows for kings and other characters. How to decide what characters to build barrows for in a republic is something which can be discussed but I would suggest that several cultures should be able to build barrows for rulers and other characters that have disginguished themselves. I figure that building a barrow will give increase the power base of the family that builds it and for the buried character's family and perhaps also some other benefits.

 

[Gurkhal]

I'm feeling a bit bored and with a certain fatigue on Antiquity with the lure of the Middle Ages and 19th Century calling to me from the CK and Victoria series...

Anyway, its time to for some more military, mostly, stuff so I suggest a bunch of character traits for Hellenistic culture characters. And yes, I am generally in favor of immersive flavor as opposed to generalist one. Will take more work and such but I think that in the end the game would benefit from it more.

Military Character Traits (Yes, these are Homeric ephitets)

Anax Andron (Lord of Men) - Morale bonus and cohort loyalty gain
Thooi (Swift) - Increased movement for armies/navies
Rhex-enor (Breaking through men) - Heavy cavalry offence
Thumo-leonta (Lion-hearted) - Morale defence
Poimen Laon (Shepherd of the People) - Morale recovery
Hekabeletes (Far-aiming) - Archer offence
Klutotoxos (Famous with the bow) - Can spawn events during battle and sieges to mostly positive effects
Euru Kreion (Wide-ruling lord) - Morale recovery and supply weight
Andreiphontes (Slayer of men) - Offensive bonus to heavy infantry
Khalkeos (Bronzen) - Can spawn events during battles and sieges
Teichesipletes (Destroyer of City Walls) - Bonus to sieges
Thouros (Furious) - Can spawn events during battles with mostly positive effcts
Areiphilos (Loved by Ares) - Can get events with positive effects if an omen from Ares is active when holding command
Diothrepes (Cherished by Zeus) - As above but with Zeus and can probably also get when holding some other office
Polu Tropos (Resourceful) - Can get events with useful effects when holding command or civilian office
Ptoli Porthios (Sacker of Cities) - Bonus to conducting Slave Raids when holding a naval command

And so on and on and on. Many things that can be done here.

 

[Gurkhal]

Another small suggestion from me to expand the flavor of different cultures and/or religions. I would propose that festivals from the ancient calender would be added into the game with unusual, interesting or even unexpected boons or drawbacks. The main idea is that first you get a text box with some alternatives on how much money you want to plow down into a certain festival, followed by an event for the festival and potentially with one for the aftermath.

Festivals as events

As the ancient calenders, as far as I know, were pretty much loaded with festivals not all would happen annually but perhaps one per year and on a schedule so that, as an example, Roman culture has five festivals then the first festival would not come back untill year six, the second festival would return year seven and so on. Thus allowing it to be a returning aspect of that culture but also not be so often and many that you get overwhelmed by them.

Of course some calenders would be more fleshed out in a historical record than others but I think that with some research and common sense one could get a few for more cultures and/or religions. To separate between civic and religious festivals can be a bit tough when considering how intermixed religion and culture could be in Antiquity but a clever dev team should, in my experience, be able to navigate this pretty well. Some cultures/religions may get more speculative festivals than others but I don't see this as a huge problem and some "stock festivals" with a twist for various cultures/religions could in my opinion work well enough without causing offence, or so I would hope.

Two links below to illustrate the sheer ammount of festivals in the ancient world and why immersion is a bit more shallow by not including it into the game. I understand its not a highly prioritized aspect of the game but I think it would be good to have included at some point. And even just wiki has alot more examples on could reasonably add.

Roman festivals - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Athenian festivals - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Celtic seasonal festivals/holidays/celebrations/whatever

Samhain - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Imbolc - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Beltane - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Lughnasadh - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Gurkhal]

Games of athletic competition

Games of athletic competition was a big thing in ancient Greece and while the Olympic games are present in Imperator I would think this could be expaned with other pan-Hellenic games as well as the local games that were also held in various Greek poleis for, to my knowledge, cultural reasons as well as fostering a "we" sense within a poleis and thus help break archaic tribal and clan identities and loyalties in favor of a more inclusive polis identity and loyalty among the citizens.

And I would be suprised if athletic games and competitions were not held in other cultural areas as well, for example among the Celts.

What I propose is that with an interval of maybe four years there are games held to which all tags that can currently send to the Olympic games can send someone to participate. And that the games are expanded to include bonus to the host, a larger bonus to the winner and also to other participants of said games. The Olympic games, being the most prestigeous, would give the largest boon to host and winner while the Heraean, Nemean, Pythian and Isthmian games would produce a smaller boon.

To host a pan-Hellenic game a tag would need to have control over the correct territory in Greece and then get an event if the state want to invest itself in the game and reap the rewards from such or if they want to abstain in which case no reward for said game will be given, but of course the tag won't have to spend any money, even if winner and participants will get their rewards as usual. I would think that if a non-Hellenistic tag would control said territory they would get an event if they want to hold the game and the AI would presumably be less likely to hold the games with a non-Hellenistic tag than a Hellenistic cultural tag would be.

The Pan-Hellenic Games

Olympic Games

Ancient Olympic Games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Cost to host: 75 coins

Host: Bonus to diplomatic reputation and an increased relation with Hellenistic tags

Winner: As present but also an increase of character loyalty and an increase in integrated cultural happiness untill the next Olympic game takes place

Participants: As present in the game, but maybe +25% or something like that

Heraean Games - would work as the other games but be for women characters to compete in

Heraean Games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Cost to host: 25 coins

Host: Increased relation with Hellenistic tags

Winner: As present but also an increase of character loyalty and an increase in integrated cultural happiness untill the next Heraean game takes place

Participants: As present in the game

Nemean Games

Nemean Games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Cost to host: 25 coins

Host: Increased relation with Hellenistic tags

Winner: As present but also an increase of character loyalty and an increase in integrated cultural happiness untill the next Nemean game takes place

Participants: As present in the game

Pythian Games

Pythian Games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Cost to host: 25 coins

Host: Increased relation with Hellenistic tags

Winner: As present but also an increase of character loyalty and an increase in integrated cultural happiness untill the next Pythian game takes place

Participants: As present in the game

Isthmian Games

Isthmian Games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Cost to host: 25 coins

Host: Increased relation with Hellenistic tags

Winner: As present but also an increase of character loyalty and an increase in integrated cultural happiness untill the next Ishmian game takes place

Participants: As present in the game

Local games

These games can be instituted to be held with a certain time between them and the player can decide who can compete in them. Be it only the primary culture, all integrated cultures or every culture within the tag. The more narrow the circle of participants are the greater the bonus but the fewer cultures gets happiness and provincial and character loyalty from this event. Casting the net wider allows more cultures and characters to get a bonus to happiness and loyalty but the bonus becomes smaller.

The cost would vary on how significent the tag is with a city-state perhaps paying nothing or 5 coins while a great power tag would pay significantly more for their games.

And one could also, if one would like that, hold funeral games for the death of rulers or other very high prominence characters in Hellenistic tags with a similar effect to local games.

Panathenaic Games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Funeral games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Gurkhal]

Two small suggestions for, most likely, Imperator 2 or something like that.

Manual equipping soldiers

The basic idea is that we keep the unit types in the game but to that add certain values like armour, attack, defence and so on. And that you get to pick the weaponry, armour, shield and so on for troops. But the option to simply keep them equipped with historical armaments would be the default setting.

Using this mechanic would however allow the player to customize their troops more for fighting certain enemies, use certain tactics or fight in certain enviroments as well as adding to the culturally syncretic nature of the ancient world. I for example envision that different military traditions allow access to certain weaponry and so if you have access to different military traditions you would also have access to weaponry and armour from those cultures. Potentially this could also be possible through trade.

Education for Characters

I know there's been some complaints about characters getting worse in the game. My solution to this would be to steal an idea from Crusader Kings and the Terra Indomita to allow for character focus when adults and also for manual picks of education for children and youths.

 

[Gurkhal]

Here are some loose thoughts that I have on the Greek Military Traditions. While partially inspired by Invictus, and its sub-mod Terra Indomita the suggestion includes stuff that could presumably be used by those mods but its basically more intended for a reform of the present Greek Military Tradition in vanilla or an idea for how a Imperator 2 could handle this topic.

All pictures comes from the internet and I naturally have no claim or anything else on them.

Greek Military Traditions

The first thing that I would suggest is that two new unit types are added to the game in the form of Spearmen (hoplites and other heavy armored spearmen used in such formations) and Pikemen (to represent phalangites and other similar troops). I will admit that I am a fan of Terra Idomita's inclusion of many new kinds of troop types but things could be translated into Heavy Infantry bonuses as well to keep with vanilla and Invictus.

The second thing is to split the Greek Military Traditions tree into three new traditions: Poleis Traditions, Diodachi Kingdoms Traditions and Alexandrian Traditions. Possibly one could add a fourth tree here under the name of Eastern Greek Traditions to represent the Greco-Bactrians and Indo-Greeks but I know to little at present regarding that to feel comfortable in adding that.

Now the reasons for this is to simulate different choices for Greek-style warfare and also offer different options for players to tailer their armies according to their political and cultural circumstances and strategy.

The way I envision this is like this.

Poleis Traditions is heavy on Spearmen infantry, siege defence and naval matters for lighter ships which would work well for drawing militaries from Hellenistic cultures that mostly provide Spearmen with a smattering of other troop types. This would thus be mostly suitable for tags basing themselves in what I would call Hellenistic core areas like the Aegean and Magna Grecia and primarily using levies.

If one wants to go deeper one could add; Spartan, Athenian and Syracusean trees within this tradition with appropriete focuses, but to keep things a bit shorter I won't go into details.

Diadochi Kingdoms Traditions has Pikemen as a basis, thus basing itself on Macedonian as opposed to other Hellenistic cultures, but also adds bonuses to many other troops types, navies with heavy ships and besieging which would make them work better for militares based on a levies from a cultural multitude and, to a degree, legions. Thus initially they would be more suitable for starting Diadochi Kingdoms or tags with a Hellenistic cultural primary culture that expands into a similar kind of position and wants to broaden the integrated cultures in their tag.

One could again go with internal trees within the traditions for the great Diadochi Kingdoms but once more to keep things a bit shorter I won't go into details.

Finally the Alexandrian Traditions would be focused on Pikemen, cavalry and besieging but also have the largest number of choices for going into another military tradition tree and thus represent the army that Philip II and Alexander the Great commanded which would make it a tradition ideal for armies going entirely into legions , with the potential to advance into other military trees to represent the inventinveness that the previous mentioned commanders displayed during the creation of the Macedonian army and command of it. One could even add that Alexandrian Traditions is only availble to start to advance in if one fullfills certain pre-conditions.

 

[Gurkhal]

Two small suggestions without many details

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Republican Revolution against Monarchy

One aspect of ancient politics which is currently absent is the threat to monarchies from republican revolutions. Now this wasn't a very common threat but it was there and on occasion resultated in great changes with the most known and important of these being the overthrow of the Roman kings and establishment of a republic in the city of Rome. But there were other instances of the same phenomena and to my knowledge Italy, Greek settled areas and Gaul are all areas in antiquity which predominatedly were not ruled by hereditary or monarchical rulers.

Civil War for Citizenship

Speaking of something somewhat related, another aspect to the civil was mechanic could be that cultures that have long languished without being integrated but relatively not too unhappy could demand to become integrated or start a civil war as the Italian allies of Rome did in the Social War. I would imagine that this could make the need to strategically integrate cultures become a more important matter as exclusion from political influence of relative large groups of a population seems to have been a dangerous situation in the ancient world, also for the population and elites with formal political influence.

 

[Gurkhal]

A new minor suggestion from me

Servile Wars

There were three great slave revolts that shaked Rome, and a number of helot revolts that shook Sparta, I think that this could be something to introduce and which I don't think is part of the present game.

The main idea here is that if slaves have a suffiicently miserable time, and perhaps most importantly can't be promoted out of the slave status, you can get a slave rebellion on your hands. This rebellion could come in various strengths but generally be a significent problem both due to the war it provokes as well as lost slave POPs who dies in battle before the rebellion is quelled.

Just like I suggested above with "Civil War for Citizenship" a reason as to think a bit about integrating cultures so "Servile Wars" could be somthing to keep in mind if you either have a very large ammount of slave POPs or if you deny them the possiblity to promote out of slavery.

 

[Gurkhal]

Citadel Government (both Monarchy and Republic)

This suggestion is a bit wild but I figure that it could be suggested seeing how the glorious Invictus mod has gotten away with a Neo-Mitanni addition in the game.

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The idea is that some cultures, starting with the Anatolian cultures and perhaps those in Greece and other areas which historically have held this organiztion of society at some point during Antiquity, can adopt a pseudo-feudal system with the ruler, be it a monarch or an archon, seated in a citadel from where he rules in a decidedly militarist manner.

The basic style of this government would be a focus on levy troops, fortress construction and bonus to mentioned fortress as well as a reduced income from taxes and commerce given how this government promotes a system of decentralized economic policies while militarizing the state, and the administration having to step back in favor of the military attracting talent.

Thus the gamestyle that it would promote is a miliaristic one with a reliance on levies and fortresses in exhange for giving up economic power as well as less effect from governors as local elites are allowed more space to control and decide things in their local communities, something that could reasonably be either a good or bad thing for the player.

Thus there would be both pros and cons with the system as well as encouraging a playstyle that would, if things goes as I envision them, be different enough from other alternatives to justify its inclusion.

For the mechanics I would loosly think of something like this:

Citadel Government

Idea Slots: 2 Martial, 1 Religious

Base Modifier: +7% Levy Size

Government Bonus: +10% Noble Happiness, -5% Fortress Construction Cost