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Just want to expand on the discussion regarding holdings a few pages down, I thought it's an interesting concept.

There should be 3 types of holdings: Pastoral, Rural, and Urban. These will then be coupled with cultures, so you can have a Greek Poleis while the surrounding population is rural Gauls or Pastoral Sogdians and so on. New holdings can be constructed (or an existing one transformed into another, e.g. urbanisation) to show how a conquering power would plant colonies for their own people.

I want the emphasis in a rome 2 to be on cultures and how they clash. The classical really is the first instance of nation building, and we have concepts such as romanization, hellenization and punicization as a result of this. Each holding should have a population count, so you could have an urban 4 pop of Greeks in Bactria with a surrounding rural and native Bactrians being at like 20 pop.

And here I'd like to borrow how Stellaris handles population rights, as in the above examples Greeks would arguably have more rights under a Greek regime than the bactrians would. Doesn't need to be as complex, but things like military service, citizenship etc should be covered. This way Rome could conquer Italy but still have a Roman population which provides most of the manpower while it's conquered people's function as allies that supply only some manpower. Gradually they could become Romans also.

Lastly, slavery was kind of a big thing but these should not be tied to culture as I'm most cases a slave population was multi ethnic and would be far beyond the scope of the game. Instead eat h holdings could have say a percentage showing how many are slaves compared to the rest of the population which would give good and bad modifiers. If the slave pop % rises too high it could trigger a revolt, etc.
 
For me a start after the death of Alexander seems natural. For the main game somewhere around 50 or 100 AD would be a decent end point. I'd also like to have India and China included for varieties sake. The warring states period of China makes this also a nice starting point in that area of the world and excluding India simply is not an option I'd say.

As far as what kind of mechanics different countries have I see that as one of the main selling points of the game. In EU:Rome the senate system was pretty neat so PDS has that covered pretty well. I'd say that if they manage to create nice internal political mechanics for the following groups of nations they have a winner on their hand:

Civilised republic (Rome, Carthage, Athens) (more of an oliarchy then modern democracy of course)
Civilised dictatorship/kingdom
Diadochi or eastern Kindom (big emphasize on choices how you incorporate local population in your mostly Greek (or Parthian) administration and army)
Tribal aristorcracy
Indian Kindom
Chinese state

It would be great to see if smaller nations could also band together in larger confederations or leagues (like the Aetolian leagu or Aedui confederation) when larger nations threaten their indipendence. Some gamplay which allows you to cunningly forge a confederation in a real new nation would be great. I'd also like to see that a tribal nation could evolve towards a more civilised form of government like Gauls after some development starting a republic or like the parthians becoming an empire.
 
For me a start after the death of Alexander seems natural. For the main game somewhere around 50 or 100 AD would be a decent end point. I'd also like to have India and China included for varieties sake. The warring states period of China makes this also a nice starting point in that area of the world and excluding India simply is not an option I'd say.

As far as what kind of mechanics different countries have I see that as one of the main selling points of the game. In EU:Rome the senate system was pretty neat so PDS has that covered pretty well. I'd say that if they manage to create nice internal political mechanics for the following groups of nations they have a winner on their hand:

Civilised republic (Rome, Carthage, Athens) (more of an oliarchy then modern democracy of course)
Civilised dictatorship/kingdom
Diadochi or eastern Kindom (big emphasize on choices how you incorporate local population in your mostly Greek (or Parthian) administration and army)
Tribal aristorcracy
Indian Kindom
Chinese state

It would be great to see if smaller nations could also band together in larger confederations or leagues (like the Aetolian leagu or Aedui confederation) when larger nations threaten their indipendence. Some gamplay which allows you to cunningly forge a confederation in a real new nation would be great. I'd also like to see that a tribal nation could evolve towards a more civilised form of government like Gauls after some development starting a republic or like the parthians becoming an empire.
It would be a good vanilla start point, though really the reign of Cyrus and even neo babylonia and neo assyria are similiar enough to work with the same mechanics.
Also you forgot the most important government, the city state. That is very much the narrative of the classical antiquity going from a number of city states with tributary agreements and forced alliances to real centralized empires.
 
It would be a good vanilla start point, though really the reign of Cyrus and even neo babylonia and neo assyria are similiar enough to work with the same mechanics.
Also you forgot the most important government, the city state. That is very much the narrative of the classical antiquity going from a number of city states with tributary agreements and forced alliances to real centralized empires.

Can't disagree with you. Babylonia and Assyria is perhaps stretching it a bit but there's little reason the starting dat couldn't be stretched back to include the persian empire via DLC. or stretch the end date further.

Good adition to add the city state. I'd say it'll probably operate not much different then a civilised republic or tyranny but it was precisly the city states I had in mind when arguing for a way to cobine your small city state or tribe into a confederacy or league in order to fight larger enemies.

Also what Vanin said above. I would really love to see for this game the holding system of CK2 with multiple settlements and cities with multiple owners per province. This would pave the way for starting new greek colonies around the mediteranee.

With respect to combat I read an idea from someone on the forum where enemie armies in the same province would not neceserily engage but they would have a chance to engage based in different factors like the type of units, general's capabilities and perhaps some geography. Armies could then operate under a different stance like evasive, or agrasive that decides wether or not the pursue a battle or try to evade it or for example a raid stance causing attrition to the enemy or enemie settlements. Garrisoning your settlements or besieging enemy settlements can also be an army stance. I really like this idea because it opens up some new avenues in warfare where tribal raiding parties can be a big pain in the ass (also adding warscare when succesfull) while it also allows you to make daring moves right past enemy armies to try and combine armies (Hannibal's brother failing to reach Hannibal's army in Italy).

I'd love to take an army of barbarian skirmishers and win wars by raiding deep in enemy territory and managing to keep evading the enemy armies.
 
Can't disagree with you. Babylonia and Assyria is perhaps stretching it a bit but there's little reason the starting dat couldn't be stretched back to include the persian empire via DLC. or stretch the end date further.

Good adition to add the city state. I'd say it'll probably operate not much different then a civilised republic or tyranny but it was precisly the city states I had in mind when arguing for a way to cobine your small city state or tribe into a confederacy or league in order to fight larger enemies.

Also what Vanin said above. I would really love to see for this game the holding system of CK2 with multiple settlements and cities with multiple owners per province. This would pave the way for starting new greek colonies around the mediteranee.

With respect to combat I read an idea from someone on the forum where enemie armies in the same province would not neceserily engage but they would have a chance to engage based in different factors like the type of units, general's capabilities and perhaps some geography. Armies could then operate under a different stance like evasive, or agrasive that decides wether or not the pursue a battle or try to evade it or for example a raid stance causing attrition to the enemy or enemie settlements. Garrisoning your settlements or besieging enemy settlements can also be an army stance. I really like this idea because it opens up some new avenues in warfare where tribal raiding parties can be a big pain in the ass (also adding warscare when succesfull) while it also allows you to make daring moves right past enemy armies to try and combine armies (Hannibal's brother failing to reach Hannibal's army in Italy).

I'd love to take an army of barbarian skirmishers and win wars by raiding deep in enemy territory and managing to keep evading the enemy armies.
Neo babylonnia and Neo assyria. The originals are obviously a bit to far back in time. But these two and persia are essentially the same state under diffrent management, when the achaemenids take it it's Persia when the Babolinians run it it is neo babylonia and when the assyrians run it's neo assyria.To some extent Alexander usses these same structure for his empre so the hellenic empire is essentialy this same empire under greek leadership.
 
Neo babylonnia and Neo assyria. The originals are obviously a bit to far back in time. But these two and persia are essentially the same state under diffrent management, when the achaemenids take it it's Persia when the Babolinians run it it is neo babylonia and when the assyrians run it's neo assyria.To some extent Alexander usses these same structure for his empre so the hellenic empire is essentialy this same empire under greek leadership.

O yeah, I kinda missed that. sounds logical. It would add a lot more timeframe but I agree that essentiall a starting date that early would fit the game for that area and probably other areas of the world would work as well. If they want to do it this way though it would require one hell of a DLC. Perhaps a core game with two distinctive starting dates?
 
O yeah, I kinda missed that. sounds logical. It would add a lot more timeframe but I agree that essentiall a starting date that early would fit the game for that area and probably other areas of the world would work as well. If they want to do it this way though it would require one hell of a DLC. Perhaps a core game with two distinctive starting dates?
I would say that post Alexander is the best start date for the game anyway, not because of historical reasons but because that is what people are most familiar with. Then a early start date can be added in a DLC at a later date.
 
... As far as what kind of mechanics different countries have I see that as one of the main selling points of the game. In EU:Rome the senate system was pretty neat so PDS has that covered pretty well. I'd say that if they manage to create nice internal political mechanics for the following groups of nations they have a winner on their hand...
I agree with this, Vae Victis was a small yet good expansion and it showed that EUR as a game held a lot of promise. I would however limit the amount of characters to those that are actually likely to be useful, instead of having an infinitely growing pool of largely redundant characters. I a way Rome 2 Total War has a good setup here, where you have "factions" within the government that will be vying for power (factions can be influential families, political parties, clans etc) and then characters are generated continuously that are added to these factions.

Rome 2 by Paradox should add a bit more complexity to this so that you could follow your dynasty at time goes by, for example with such influential or royal families having their own family trees which could allow marrying into other families, even from other states (such as a Ptolemaic princess marrying a Seleucid prince to secure a peace treaty). Having a fully fledged character system as in CK2 or the first EUR is probably, as above, redundant. It would be cooler to have a system where an established family could be wiped out or fall out of favour and be replaced with a generated one, to keep things from being static, yet retaining this simplicity.

As we are discussing start dates, the map and DLC structure (which is an inescapable topic if we are interested in the long-term viability and health of the game) I think it would be nice to break from the easily cemented Pyrrhic War start date most games tend to obsess over - starting in 323 BC at Alexander's death would be awesome in my opinion but I adore the Wars of the Diadochi so I am thoroughly biased. But, I would prefer if Paradox focused down on one start date and made the factions and setting around that interesting instead of wasting resources and time on filling out history sheets for every province over hundreds of years. Modders are excellent at doing that regardless and can arguably do it better anyway.

It would also make sense to similarly focus on a smaller set of playable factions to start, Rome and Carthage being two distinct and mandatory ones which could be developed with their own governments that would be allowed to change over time. The Roman Republic should be able to develop towards the ascension of an Emperor, with detailed steps on the way (Marian reforms, slow yet steady deconstruction of the Roman constitution to allow for continuous consulship, prolonged dictatorships, civil wars etc up until triumvirates and centralisation of power). Carthage should be able to follow a similar path but with its own authentic flavour to make it truly distinct from Rome. Other factions I would like to see at the start are obviously the Macedonian successor states, as a 323 BC start date is unnecessary otherwise. Even if a Pyrrhic War start is selected the Hellenistic Kingdoms would be required to flesh out the game, I think. Later on more factions could be added as DLC.

Regarding the map, a minimum is ending it at the Thar desert in north-western India and at Xinjiang province in western China. Not containing the entirety of the Seleucid Empire was a mistake in EUR which must be rectified. All of India would not be amiss either, but I think China is too isolated compared to the rest to make sense to include. India is also not so involved either but at least we had contact between Maurya and the Seleucids and later the Indo-Greeks who bridge the gap.
 
I would say that post Alexander is the best start date for the game anyway, not because of historical reasons but because that is what people are most familiar with. Then a early start date can be added in a DLC at a later date.

I pretty much agree on the recognition part. The big downside I see with this is that it will essentially make monarchies, with the Roman Republic sticking out, as the almost dominant political system as the age of the city-state would essentially be dead.

And I think that a special system for the successors of Alexander will probably be needed in order to simulate the kind of struggle that came about over Alexadner's empire. Personally I don't think that a normal series of states warring with each other will sufficently capture the dynamics of the early Wars of the Successors.
 
I pretty much agree on the recognition part. The big downside I see with this is that it will essentially make monarchies, with the Roman Republic sticking out, as the almost dominant political system as the age of the city-state would essentially be dead.

And I think that a special system for the successors of Alexander will probably be needed in order to simulate the kind of struggle that came about over Alexadner's empire. Personally I don't think that a normal series of states warring with each other will sufficently capture the dynamics of the early Wars of the Successors.

I agree about the succesors. Their government form in my opinion should revolve around 2 points; 1, the struggle with other diadochi for the support (military and colonisation) of the hellenistic population around the eastern mediteranee in their territory as they formed the core of their army and thus power. And 2, how the state deals with the local population and persian satrapies, do they get more or less equal rights then greeks (which would have reprecussions on point1) and how do they integrate them in (or even let them run) the empire and the army? Since especially the first point is a limited fishing pond it could lead to an interesting hellenistic succesor battle.

I'd also say that this government form can form the benchmark for the Parthians (or perhaps an other outsider you use to conquor persia) after all they also formed a core of initially outsiders that came to rule different regions of the former Persian empire.

With respect to city states I'm not sure. After the death of Alexander there where plenty of indipendent Greek colonies around the mediteranee and city states in Greece. Trying to avert their fate of being swallowed up can be a nice challenge in which clever diplomacy or perhaps an interesting confederation or league forming mechanism plays a role.
 
They did make every country playable in Rome 1, so its possible to do the same in Rome 2.
But not every country is FUN to play, as some smaller states will just be outright annexed by some big aggressive neighbour. People must just accept that.
This has happened in most PDX-games throughout the entire history from EU1. However in some of their games small states can be fun to play anyway (if you can survive) such as CK2 because of mechanics focusing on characters rather than territory. You don't even have to expand, even though most players will. So im not so worried about this for Rome 2 if that will follow traditions of the prequel.
 
They did make every country playable in Rome 1, so its possible to do the same in Rome 2.
But not every country is FUN to play, as some smaller states will just be outright annexed by some big aggressive neighbour. People must just accept that.
This has happened in most PDX-games throughout the entire history from EU1. However in some of their games small states can be fun to play anyway (if you can survive) such as CK2 because of mechanics focusing on characters rather than territory. You don't even have to expand, even though most players will. So im not so worried about this for Rome 2 if that will follow traditions of the prequel.

I'm fairly sure that in every PDS game someone managed to conquor the world with pretty much every OPM so I'm not too much afraid of it. As a small nation it might be nice to have more realistic options for surviving longer like finding a bigger protector or confederate for a while against aggrasive neigbours.
 
I agree about the succesors. Their government form in my opinion should revolve around 2 points; 1, the struggle with other diadochi for the support (military and colonisation) of the hellenistic population around the eastern mediteranee in their territory as they formed the core of their army and thus power. And 2, how the state deals with the local population and persian satrapies, do they get more or less equal rights then greeks (which would have reprecussions on point1) and how do they integrate them in (or even let them run) the empire and the army? Since especially the first point is a limited fishing pond it could lead to an interesting hellenistic succesor battle.

Excellent points that I wholeheartedly agree with. There should be a different feeling and needs when playing a successor of Alexander the Great as opposed to play a Celtic tribe or an Indian kingdom.

I'd also say that this government form can form the benchmark for the Parthians (or perhaps an other outsider you use to conquor persia) after all they also formed a core of initially outsiders that came to rule different regions of the former Persian empire.

Very true, although I really know to little about the Parthians to be able to say more than this.

With respect to city states I'm not sure. After the death of Alexander there where plenty of indipendent Greek colonies around the mediteranee and city states in Greece. Trying to avert their fate of being swallowed up can be a nice challenge in which clever diplomacy or perhaps an interesting confederation or league forming mechanism plays a role.

You're right in that there are city-states left and that they can provide a challenge for those interested. But I would think that its also true that city-states were very much giving way to confederations and unions or were entirely domainted by larger political structures. Thus we don't see city-states acting in nearly the same way that they did in the Archaic or Classical periods, and even then these groupings of city-states were usually playing second, or third, fiddle to larger political units.
 
For me a start after the death of Alexander seems natural
I'd say somewhere around 281 BCE.
Seleucus, Ptolemy and Lysimachus all died quite recently, leaving their realms in turmoil. Pyrrhic wars are about to start, and to decisively shape Italy for the future. Carthage has about two decades to prepare for Punic wars.
Arsaces will start his invasion a few decades later, and try to form the Parthian Empire.

There are no super-strong realms at this point. Vast empires struggle with internal and external threats, following the deaths of their rulers. Diadochi wars are pretty much over, and we are ready to enter a new era. There is a chance for everyone to prosper and rise above others and dominate the world. Perfect for a video game scenario.

Setting the start date immediately after the death of Alexander would make for a really wild game, as anything could happen. As I see it, it would be like Charlemagne DLC for CK2. Potential for quite a lot of random mess.
If the game is about Rome, then I'd say 281 BCE should be the earliest possible vanilla start date.

Also, I'm in favor of having only a few start dates, rather than what we have with CK2 and EU4.
1. 281 BCE
2. 264 (First Punic War)
3. 218 (Second Punic War and Hannibal)
4. 146 (Carthage destroyed, rise of Gracchi brothers)
5. 88 (Sulla civil war, prelude to Spartacus, rise of Caesar)
6. 59 (The First Triumvirate)
7. 2 (Augustus Pater Patriae)

A bit too Roman-centric, but oh well..
 
A bit too Roman-centric, but oh well..
Perhaps, but generally players choose the earliest start-date and you've included three that have Rome as an equal or lesser player needing a good lead and some luck to come out ahead - and all three are the earlier start dates.

I would actually drop the 2 BCE start and replace it with the civil war. Including Caesarion and others would make for fascinating games.


There's a chance I am alone in this; I would start with Phillip of Macedon still in charge and offer the player the chance to reproduce Alexander's conquests - but I'll admit I am not interested in doing that myself - I would want to have some fun with the quasi-colonial nature of the western Mediterranean.
 
Perhaps, but generally players choose the earliest start-date and you've included three that have Rome as an equal or lesser player needing a good lead and some luck to come out ahead - and all three are the earlier start dates.

I would actually drop the 2 BCE start and replace it with the civil war. Including Caesarion and others would make for fascinating games.
I'm also guilty of always choosing earlier start dates, but I wouldn't be able to resist the first century BCE. Simply too many great events and people.

I'd say anything between 336 and 283 would be a total mess, and a real pain to balance out. However, if you'd want something before Alexander, I'd say 351 or 356 BCE is quite nice. In that period, you have Phillip on the rise. But most importantly, Persian Empire faces revolts in Egypt and Asia Minor. Only super-realm on the map would have tremendous difficulties keeping itself together.
Here again we have an end of an era. Athens and Sparta are exhausted from wars, and Persians are waning. Anything can happen.
Also, Samnite wars are about to start in Italy....
 
Setting the start date immediately after the death of Alexander would make for a really wild game, as anything could happen. As I see it, it would be like Charlemagne DLC for CK2. Potential for quite a lot of random mess.
You are probably right, but 336bc would give you the thrill to conquer the whole world.
It could be a nice starting point for a DLC, if the player should struggle to mantain such a huge empire healthy and solid.
 
You are probably right, but 336bc would give you the thrill to conquer the whole world.
It could be a nice starting point for a DLC, if the player should struggle to mantain such a huge empire healthy and solid.
Indeed.
But if you start at that time, Alexander either conquers Persia, or fails miserably. And both factions are always in same preset conditions regarding strength.
And if you start a few decades before that, quite a lot of things can change. Persia can brush off revolts easily, and come out stronger to face Alexander. Or it can be fragmented, or simply too weak. At the same time, wars of Philip could last longer than expected. Perhaps he would lead Macedon across Persia, with Alexander as his aide. Perhaps he would turn West instead...
Would present quite a larger variety of possible outcomes, and a high replay value.

In any case, I wouldn't complain if we had both 351 and 336 start dates. :)
 
I have been thinking a little about this and I must say that I've changed my mind to that a start date before Alexander the Great would be best. The reason is that I think that we would get more oppertunities and also that I think that the West would be more fun to play with if we can get in before Rome has crushed all serious opposition.

Now the main reason as to why I would like to see a starting date more connected with Philip II than Alexander is the West. At Alexander's death the Samnites have effecitvely, to my knowledge, been defeated and Italy has resigned itself to Roman rule. An earlier start date would give us, in my opinion, better oppertunities with both Magna Grecia, Samnites, Italians, Umbrians, Celts and what else you've got in Italy. And a Punic War is probably not going to be set in stone as it would be if we took the game to where the Romans and Carthaginians dominates the West with no real contender.

And in regards to the Hellenistic East I think that could be done anyway, to create the world that Alexander's conquests created. My solution would be to give Hellenic powers a single chance, when one of them has become dominant in Greece, to launch this great invasion of Persia, kind of like say Charlemagne or the Mongols in CK2, and then see if they can defeat the Great King and how far they can press on. I imagine that this will be a heavily scripted set of events with many political and socio-econimic choices made on how to organize the conquests even as you march you are around and try to get a victory. After victory Hellenistic mechanics are introduced to the new kingdom where the Greeks and Macedonians (and other Hellenic cultures who emigrate there) start as a privilaged ruling caste and then you can take things anywhere where you want, including ambitious generals setting up their own little Hellenistic kingdoms circumstances are right for it, getting the non-Greek majority into the business of running the empire and so on.
 
1. 281 BCE
2. 264 (First Punic War)
3. 218 (Second Punic War and Hannibal)
4. 146 (Carthage destroyed, rise of Gracchi brothers)
5. 88 (Sulla civil war, prelude to Spartacus, rise of Caesar)
6. 59 (The First Triumvirate)
7. 2 (Augustus Pater Patriae)

A bit too Roman-centric, but oh well..
I think these are too many; the development resources required to research, code and balance a bookmark shouldn't be understated. I still remember that Pyrrhus had barely an army at game start in EU:R and no possibility of winning against Rome.

I'd rather paradox focus on one and spend what else time they have on fleshing out gameplay. Out of those 281 bc isn't a bad pick though. This is one of those things modders can add with time, or DLC that introduce specific mechanics for a specific period.
 
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