[MOD] -ABBC- Additional Byzantine-Bulgarian Characters

[UMACI]

And done! Gaius Julius Caesar, Augustus and Marcus Antonius connected to eachother through ancestry. Will add Caesar his supposed child with Cleopatra and perhaps may add some claimed bastards of his, such as great-grandfather of Julius Sabinus.

Julius Sabinus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Added Cleopatra and a few generations of her ancestors to show how much Ptolemiacs loved their family. Hidden descendants are duplicates. Started the family with Ptolemy V epiphanes because he was married to a Seleucid and I may consider adding some generations of Seleucids as well depending on whether I need them to connect with someone I want to add. Currently there are just two Seleucids added, Ptolemy V's wife and her father. Cleopatra's children with Caesar and Marcus Antonius I'm working on.

So now that these are mostly done, the reason for adding Ptolemaics:

Iotapa (daughter of Artavasdes I) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's been on my mind for a while to add some Orontids, the main branches have died out by 867 start but a dynasty in the game, Arcruni (Artsuni) is a cadet house of Orontids.

Iotapa, whose mother was an Orontid was engaged to her distant relative, Alexander Helios, a son of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra. Alexander Helios died and so the marriage didn't come to pass so she was married to Mithridates III of the Orontid dynasty, her cousin on her mothers side. I may or may not connect them through their ancestors (depending on how many generations) but I will add a marriage to show the connection.

 

[UMACI]

Some Orontids of Commagene. Added them as cadet under Arcruni although it was the other way around. Hidden branches are duplicate because of incestuous marriages. The empress here is Ennia Naevia who wasn't actually an empress. Actually she had a husband (won't add him) and was in an affair with Caligula and Caligula had promised to marry her after becoming emperor but marriage didn't happen but I still made it to show the connection. One member married a descendant(several generations) of Augustus and had a daughter, that can be seen at the bottom with a different dynasty. I am adding generations of descendants to Augustus and will also do so for his sister but won't give them seperate dynasties for the families they belonged to nor will I give them spouses etc. in most cases unless that spouse connects to someone else I've added or was already in the game.

Added Gaius Julius Caesar's supposed son with Cleopatra ( VII Theo Philopator), later on I intend to add some of his other claimed children.
Also added Cleopatra's children with Marcus Antonius. Only one of them, Cleopatra Selene, had descendants.

She married to Gaius Julius Juba(Juba II), only child of King Juba of Numidia.
The couple had a daughter, Julia Drusilla and a son, Gaius Julius Ptolemaeus. Gaius Julius Ptolemaeus had only one child, a daughter possibly named Drusilla.

This daughter married to a member of the Sampsigeramus/Emesene dynasty, Gaius Iulius Sohaemus Philocaesar Philorhomaeus whose mother was an Orontid, the first family shown in this post.

Several generations later, a member, the high priest of Elegabalus, Julius Bassinus had two daughters, Julia Domna and Julia Maesa. Julia Domna married to Septimus Severus who would later become emperor and had two sons Caracalla and Geta. Her sister Julia Maesa was already married and had two daughters Julia Soaemias Bassina who was the mother of the later emperor Heliogabalus and Julia Avita Mamae whose son, Alexander Severus, would also become emperor.

 

[UMACI]

I must take a look at my notes to be sure but I think I have added additional family members to all the emperors before tetrarchs, at least all the ones that I could find members for. I was planning to do this long after release but checking to see whether there are errors is so boring and time consuming, for the past week whenever I had free time I instead worked on this and on top of it added things I didn't even plan for like Ptolemaics, ancestral connections of Marcus Antonius, Gaius Julius Caesar and Augustus and descendants to Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra that connect to some emperors as I've posted in a previous post. I have also went out of my way to add generations of descendants to Augustus, in some places it is not sure whether the supposed descendant in question is actually the child of a descendant or the child of that descendants husband/wife and a different spouse of that husband/wife but I accepted as if they were descendants for certain. Some of these people turned out to be ancestors of some other people I've previously added giving possible descendants all the way to the 867 start in some cases and since I haven't finished checking all the descendants I've found,

I will update Updated the files on the first post. I also consider merging the dynasty I've added for Gaius Julius Caesar with Octavian dynasty and perhaps also Claudius dynasty, moving all of the ones who are of common descent into one big dynasty seperated by cadet houses and also giving a cadet for each seperate line of descent from Augustus. After that, back to the boring task of checking for errors...

Also, I must confess something, for the past 2-3 days I have come to think that it is currently in a releaseble state with few possible mistakes/errors that can be gradually corrected as spotted, only major thing keeping me from doing it is, I'm a bit embarassed to tell but not having found a good picture for the mod page. I'm not even sure what would be appropriate for this mod, a tree perhaps?

 

[UMACI]

Another update made some more corrections, or rather added missing connections since couldn't find any new errors. As of now the non-tribal part has near 3400 characters of which more than 3000 are historical characters and the fictional ones are mostly there to fill the gaps between people known to be related.


Moved "Augustus"(Octavian) to same dynasty as Gaius Julius Caesar and added a cadet for Augustus and the line of descendants I've added (actually they belonged to different houses but only a straight line with very little branching added).

Made a few changes to Ashina family tree based on a few theories that fit well together and lack of certainty of some information.

First part is based on Eudoxia Epiphania, daughter of Heraclius with his first wife, Fabia Eudokia:

Eudoxia Epiphania was sent as a bride to either the Khazar ruler Ziebel or his son(name not given) but on her way Ziebel (or his son) died. She is thought to have died before 639 but before this date and after learning of the death of Ziebel/son is not certain and I've seen three claims, that she returned and died sometime after, she returned and was offered as a bride to an Arab ruler in 630s (but no mention of marriage) and finally she didn't return and was married to Irbis.

Second part is based on Anastasia, grandmother of Tiberios (Son of Justinian II):

I PBE: Anastasia 1

pbe.kcl.ac.uk

Anastasia (wife of Constantine IV) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Anastasia is mother of Justinian II with a theory of her being the daughter of Ioannes Athalaricus (bastard son of Heraclius), however there's also mention of Anastasia as being the mother of Justinian II's wife Empress Theodora, implying she would be a Khazar too. Although it wouldn't be too likely, this doesn't necessarily mean there couldn't have been two Anastasias and through a baptism a century and a half later, we know of a pagan ruler taking the name of his godfather upon baptism, Boris of Bulgaria taking the name Mihail, the name of his godfather Michael III. Because of this I've kept Anastasia the daughter of Ioannes Athalaricus, mother to Justinian and added a second Anastasia, a Khazar, as mother to Empress Theodora. Two other theories I've seen based on Anastasia the mother of Empress Theodora are that she is the daughter of Irbis and that she isn't just Irbis' daughter but she is Irbis' daughter with Eudoxia Epiphania.

Third part is based on both our knowledge and lack of knowledge of Empress Theodora's family: Her only relative whose exact connection to her known is Busir, her brother. Their connection to Irbis is not known. According to Djagfar Tarixi(although not reliable fixing fact with fiction, there isn't much else) which a good portion of Khazar family tree and Dulo (Volga branch) family tree in the game seems to come from, the ruler after Irbis was Khalga and this Khalga is thought to be, if he ever existed, a brother or son of Irbis. Based on our lack of knowledge and theories above, I've moved Busir and Theodora to be children of Khalga and made them children of Khalga and Anastasia.

Relevant part of the family tree now looks like this:

 

[UMACI]

Haven't had time to spare on this after last post until today, added some more missing connections(though haven't gone through the files to check for errors after last post) and a few more character additions. Apart from some possible minor errors that I somehow skipped or haven't checked yet, I think it is as ready for release as it can be. In fact before posting this I tried to do so but couldn't exactly figure it out. When I have more time(perhaps today perhaps a few days later) I'll try it again.

Also updated the first post with the newest files.

 

[UMACI]

It is now on Steam Workshop for anyone who is interested.

Steam Workshop::-ABBC- Additional Byzantine-Bulgarian Characters

steamcommunity.com

 

[Zeeg]

It is now on Steam Workshop for anyone who is interested.

Steam Workshop::-ABBC- Additional Byzantine-Bulgarian Characters

steamcommunity.com

THIS IS GLORIOUS!
Well done! Been anxiously waiting for it!!

 

[UMACI]

THIS IS GLORIOUS!
Well done! Been anxiously waiting for it!!

Thanks! If you have just started or haven't started yet, I'll be updating it again within half an hour with some more small fixes and a few small additions. But after that any update won't be making any major changes for some time. Edit: done.

I was thinking of releasing first a version for Expanded Cultures and after that one for base game but since base game added two cultures that I can make use of and because when I first uploaded it Expanded Cultures wasn't yet updated, released version has no characters using cultures from that but you can still play it together with expanded cultures if you were using it I may upload the version with characters making use of cultures from that as well but it will only be a handful of people now with PDX adding ancient cultures.

This should also be compatible with most other mods since it doesn't change anything besides character files and only makes some character and dynasty/house additions.

 

[UMACI]

A version that makes use of cultures added by Culture Expanded is also up now


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3180138029

 

[UMACI]

Currently working on a small addition, family of Emperor of the West Avitus. His family is known to be connected to several other families including the family of Ruricius bishop of Limoges. Ruricius, through his daughter, is an ancestor of Bodogisel, a Frankish ambassador to Constantinople who is claimed to be the father of Arnulf of Metz, therefore an ancestor of Karlings. I am as of yet undecided whether to connect Karlings to them or not but I'll be adding the family of Ruricius at a later time. I am currently adding the family due to another connection: Avita Palladia, a sister of Avitus, was married to another Emperor of the West, Petronius Maximus.

 

[UMACI]

If I have time I may add the family of Ruricius this weekend and may start on a few small families connected to some families I've already added.

 

[UMACI]

I've added Ruricius of Limoges and his family (mostly), added some more missing Merovingians (connected with Ruricius) and added a partial family tree for Gregory of Tours, just enough to connect him to Ruricius.

I consider adding some Exilarchs for a week or two now, starting from 600s/700s and ending with the generation that are alive around 1066 but it is hard to construct the family tree so I don't know when that would finish.

Exilarch - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Besides that, my main focus at the moment is adding all the families related to the Anicii I could find, as long as I can find the connection as well.

 

[UMACI]

I haven't been planning to add anything major(that is, anything major that would also have an effect in either start date) for a while but this one I had to do since it also helps me with some families I wanted to add but couldn't due to gaps... I've partially added descendants of Theodoros Chilas, which include Theodoros the Studite and his cousin Empress Theodote, and in a few days hope to finish them, connecting the popes listed below to eachother.

Theodoros Chilas — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org

 

[UMACI]

This took shorter than I thought so rest of the descendants shown there is also added, will connect the Popes later on.

 

[UMACI]

A small "progress" update.

I'm scrapping the Descent into Obscurity branch which I've previously mentioned.

This was going to be addition of fictional members to several dynasties that existed before 867 or between 867 and 1066 to make them available in these start dates as well. These additions weren't going to be done to any/all dynasties but to carefully selected individuals who are plausible to have had descendants that reached to these dates but just not known about, basically dynasty having faded into obscurity, hence the name.

Inspiration for this came because even though the only member of Anastasius' family to became an emperor was himself and he had no surviving descendants (he had a bastard son who died at a young age) through his brother and sister 4-5 generations of his family is recorded and some members of the last generation to be recorded were married themselves and some of these married people were known to have children so it is known that the family lived on, just that it "descended into obscurity".


To show what kind of people would've been eligible for this, below are a few examples that I've considered and the reasoning behind:

- Huneric the Vandal King exiled his nephew Godagis and his wife and there is no record of them after that. There is no record of him having any children but there is no record of him explicitly stating he did not have any children, he had a wife and was still alive when he was last mentioned.

- After being defeated by Belisarius, another Vandal King, Gelimer was given estates in Galatia and settled there. Gelimer is known to had at least one child, a daughter and may have had more and it is also known his surviving nephews and cousins accompanied him(several of them died in battles) and lived together with him in Galatia. After being settled there, there are no further records of them. There is no further record and no record of spouses but they are alive when last recorded and some (Gelimer) is recorded to have children.

- Flavius Anicius Maximus. He had no recorded children but is not explicitly stated to be childles, had married twice and Justinian divided a property between him and his uncle, after the death of Anicius Maximus so it is quite plausible for him to have had some children.

- Sabin who ruled Bulgaria in 765-766 and fled to Byzantine Empire and the transfer of his family was also arranged by the empire and he was last mentioned in 768. He has no recorded children but he is not explicitly stated to be childless, he is known to be married, he is still alive when he is last mentioned he is known to have a family even though the details of the family is not known.

- Telerig of Bulgaria who fled to Byzantine Empire in 777 and was made patrician by Emperor Leo the Khazar and was married to a relative of Empress Eirene. No further mention of him but when last mentioned he is alive and is married.

- Several branches of Ashina that sought asylum with the Chinese and are known to have had children.

As can be seen, all of these are either people plausible to have some descendants or indeed are known to have descendants, just that these descendants are not well known.

The reason I'm scrapping this, at least for the time being, is that I do not want to add so many generations of fictional people unless it is necessary (such as with tribes with no people known at all), at least not add it without an option for people to not have them and couldn't find one (won't make it a seperate submod as it would complicate things more). So what I'll currently do is add descendants to suitable candidates that meet the necessary criteria and are only 2-3 generations (or around a century) away at most. I consider adding the rest as a seperate file and make it defunct by default but easily made playable with a slight change.

 

[UMACI]

Another progress update, added a few members of the Exilarchs though they are not yet present in either start date. I will gradually add more but will be sometime before they will be around for 1066.

A major thing I've started doing but will not have any actual impact on either start date is changing the dynasties of some of the emperors from the fictional ones PDX made, their dynasty will be whichever gens they belonged to.

 

[UMACI]

Another progress update, added a few members of the Exilarchs though they are not yet present in either start date. I will gradually add more but will be sometime before they will be around for 1066.

A major thing I've started doing but will not have any actual impact on either start date is changing the dynasties of some of the emperors from the fictional ones PDX made, their dynasty will be whichever gens they belonged to.

Rest of the Exilarchs aren't coming any time soon and I think there aren't any emperors left that belonged to one of the gentes.

As for a progress update, Popes and Patriarchs update I've decided not to continue with, I've already made additions to families of several popes and patriarchs and I do not consider doing more unless they are connected to some other existing family whether in vanilla or added by me (currently there is still one I know of that's possibly connected) I may expand it a bit more to include Popes and Patriarchs who has family members alive around 867 and 1066 but for the time being won't put time to research on it.

With that out of the way there are only two things left to do from my road map, addition of people, especially Hungarians/Magyars from Gesta Hungarorum (a not so reliable source but PDX uses it as well) and additions to family trees of Georgians, Armenians and Persians. Both of these require much time to read which I currently don't have though I want to add them, eventually.

Since I won't be doing these any time soon, I've decided to do another major change that don't actually require much time and won't exactly impact the game either: Changing the cultures of emperors. This will especially effect the version for cultures expanded since it adds many cultures to the table but vanilla version will also see the emperor's cultures change, depending on time and origin most will at least see a change from Greek to Roman.

 

[UMACI]

Since I won't be doing these any time soon, I've decided to do another major change that don't actually require much time and won't exactly impact the game either: Changing the cultures of emperors. This will especially effect the version for cultures expanded since it adds many cultures to the table but vanilla version will also see the emperor's cultures change, depending on time and origin most will at least see a change from Greek to Roman.

This is also mostly complete. I'm running out fast of things to add. The frequent updates ( sometimes a few each day) since release have mostly been smaller things with the exception of a couple or so and were generally result of just 30 minutes of work at most, some taking as short as 10 as these almost entirely came from my notes taken from material I've already read. I still have a few more smaller things lying around to add but may probably finish them by the week's end so after that I think updates will mostly be fixes since I don't have time to read for the remaining big additions from the road map at least for a month or two and around that time I'll also have to move so unfortunately that last two major additions are not coming anytime soon but I'll try to get Exilarchs soon, perhaps also along with the smaller things by the week ends.


Edit: I think I'll also add the Descent into Obscurity update which I've previously decided not to, at least all the work that I've put in it so far. Since it is entirely fictional I won't make them available to all by default but through a very simple edit of the relevant file for anyone wishing them.

 

[UMACI]

Something that has been on my mind for a very long time and that I was on the fence on whether to do or not to do, another big change for the Bulgarian ruling family: It is theorised that Nikola was the second husband of his wife(whose name is thought to be Rhipsimia) and of the four Kometopuli brothers, Moses and Aaron were actually from her first marriage, the first husband being Ivan the son of Simeon who fled to Byzantine Empire after his failed rebellion and is known to have married a noblewoman of Armenian origin (or from the Armeniac theme). I decided to go ahead with it and finally made the change.

I also considered giving two seperate houses for Aron and Samuil and making them in a feud due to Gavril Radomir's father murdering all of Aron's children except Ivan Vladislav whose life was only spared due to the pleas of Samuil's son Gavril Radomir, whom Ivan Vladislav paid some decades later by murdering his saviour Gavril, his wife and blinding his firstborn son but ultimately decided against it since they are collectively known as the Kometopuli brothers and I had already given seperate houses for three of Ivan Vladislav's sons, Radomir, Aaron and Alusian s their descendants carry their name as family names.

This change will probably be the last major change/addition that will come for a while due to reasons mentioned in the previous post and I was only able to do this because despite the result having a major impact, it required very little change, writing this post actually took longer than doing the change.

 

[egich]

localization.7z

drive.google.com

Loc file.