(MOD) 650 b.c.

[Taylor]

Welcome to the 650BC mod! This mod is about the period from 650BC to about 200BC.

This was the ascendancy of literacy and new philosophies. In Europe, Greece emerged from its dark ages, starting to write again after centuries of illiteracy. In the Middle East, the Jews returned to Israel to rebuild their temple. In Persia, Zoroastrianism started. In India, Buddhism began. In China, Confucianism, Legalism and Taoism were developed. The never-before seen contact and cultural exchange ensured the spread of all these philosophies and religions. Cultures like Helenism spread over large parts of the world, but the reverse also happened, with Alexander dressing like a Babylonian and the Mystery religions becoming popular in Greece. For many regions of the world, this period marks the transition from prehistory to written history. Most of the history of Greece, India, Italy and Persia from before this period is legendary in nature, whereas during this period, a literary tradition is formed and these regions enter written history.

Politically, large political units were formed out of a multitude of statelets. Sure, we already had the Assyrian and the Egyptian empires, and the (legendary) Shang dynasty in China, but in this time period, the vastness of empires increases dramatically with the Persian and subsequent Macedonian empires, the empires formed by Magadha in India (most famously, the Maurya empire) and the Qin in China. In Italy, Rome rose from insignificance to uniting most of the peninsula, while in parallel, a Phoenician power in the form of Carthage rose to power. The old civilizations, on the other hand, decline. Egypt slowly but steadily sinks into insignificance, and the Middle East after the Neo-Babylonian empire is also not doing so well.

Since so many of the world was still "in the dark" so to speak, some of the contents of the mod are based on legend. While we have historical units such as Athens, Sparta, Argos, Corinth, Macedon, the Ionian city states, the Scythians, Egyptians, Lydians, Urartians, Persians, Medes, the Etruscans, the Romans, the Phoenicians, the various nations in China's Spring and Autumn, and subsequent Warring Nations period, we also have the countless small Vedic Indian kingdoms, the mysterious Arab kingdoms, the Japanese empire, Gojoseon (the precuror to Korea) the Cham and Van Lang.

The mod is not at all finished yet, though, but you can still download and play it and have some fun with it. Just don't expect your game to be very historical...

What is done?

• The countries at the 650BC start are there.
• Most of them have unique flags.
• This mod uses D&T/DAO as a base, but the map has been edited in many places
• Religions are there.
• Cultures are there.
• Tech groups and technologies are there, including military (land) units, although the techs need some work still.
• Many, but not all, province production as well as base tax and manpower has been modded.
• National ideas and buildings are there.
• Some events and decisions.
• Some mechanics, such as forming empires is there.

What is not done?

• There is almost no history after 650BC.
• Specifically, new religions don't start yet and new countries aren't formed (need decisions and/or quest for independence).
• Lots of province trade goods and values aren't modded yet.
• Ships are vanilla.
• Needs more decisions and flavor events.
• The Celts aren't represented properly.

What are some plans?

• I want to include the Celts as a patchwork of tribes. This is going to be a lot of work.
• I want to include a faction system. Don't worry though! It won't be nearly as restrictive as the Chinese faction system in vanilla. Various factions will only give some modifiers and influence some events, but will not prevent you from DoWing, trading, colonizing or what have you. There will be four factions: Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Priests and Citizens. The various nations will have various levels of influence for each of the factions, and of course government forms also influence the factions and vice versa.
• Moar events and decisions!

Download: here (version: 18 Jan. 2013). Important install instruction: DELETE any old version of the mod before unzipping this one. edit: Whoops, forgot to include the .mod file in the archive! You can download that here. Just unzip it into your mod folder!

And now for the screenies! (you can take a closer look at them by right clicking on them and selecting "view image" (or similar))

The world:


Yes. That's a lot of countries. The abbreviations (and their meanings) are listed below:

#Italy COC = Campanian Confederacy COE = Etrurian Confederacy COP = Po Confederacy OSC = Osci PIC = Picentes ROM = Rome SAM = Samnites SBN = Sabines UMB = Umbri #Greek cities & colonies ABY = Abydos AEN = Aenus AMB = Ambracia APO = Apollonia ARG = Argos ATH = Athens BYZ = Byzantion CHA = Chalcis COR = Corinth CRO = Croton CUM = Cumae CYM = Cyme CYP = Cyprus CYZ = Cyzicus DEL = Delphi ELI = Elis HAL = Halicarnassus HEL = Helike KNO = Knossos KRK = Kerkyra MCD = Macedonia MIL = Miletus MIT = Mitylene MSS = Messene NAX = Naxos OLB = Olbia POS = Poseidonia RHE = Rhegion RHO = Rhodos SIN = Sinope SMY = Smyrna SPA = Sparta SYB = Sybaris SYR = Syracuse TAR = Taras TEG = Tegea THB = Thebes THR = Thermon THS = Thessaly TRA = Trapezous #Phoenicians & Tartessos ARV = Arados (Arvad) BYB = Byblos CAL = Calpe CAR = Carthage CRL = Caralis GAD = Gadir HAD = Hadrumetum HIP = Hippo IBO = Ibossim IGI = Igilgili LEP = Leptis magna MEN = Meninx MLC = Malaca MOT = Motya OEA = Oea RUS = Rusadir THA = Tharros TRT = Tartessos TYR = Tyre UTC = Utica #Middle East & Iran JUD = Judea MAN = Mannaeans PAC = Pactyans #Africa BLE = Blemmyes #India DAN = Dandaka DHI = Dhingyawati GOM = Gomanta KAC = Kaccha KAN = Kanchi KAR = Karanataka KEK = Kekaya KIS = Kishkindha KON = Konkana MAD = Madra MAH = Mahishaka MLV = Malava NIS = Nishada PND = Pandya PRA = Pragiyotisa PUN = Pundra SAL = Salwa SAU = Sauvira SNH = Sinhala SRP = Surparaka TRI = Trigarta VID = Vidrabha #China, Korea, Japan ZHE = Zheng ZHO = Zhou ZHS = Zhongshan

Now for some in-game screenshots.

The Assyrian Perspective:

Btw, notice the flag mask in the top left? I made that by having my girlfriend hold up a pink shawl and taking a picture (and then doing some Gimp-ing of course)

The World according to Sparta:



The Indian View on Things:



The Chinese Worldview:


If you have any suggestions or would like to help out, that would be very much appreciated! We could especially use some modders for modding all them text files, and graphics artists because mine aren't all that great.

[XVG]

This looks interesting. Will definitely give it a try when it comes out!

EDIT: Oh, there's a download link there. I wonder who I couldn't notice that.

[Taylor]

This looks interesting. Will definitely give it a try when it comes out!

EDIT: Oh, there's a download link there. I wonder who I couldn't notice that.

Thanks! Yeah there's a download, but it's not playable at all yet, mind you!

[Chlodio]

Will Carthage be trade league?

[Nuril]

The Germanic culture-group shouldn't be limited to Scandinavia. Judging by the positions you're using a 1200 BCE map of the Nordic bronze-age culture, but by this time they stretched from the Netherlands to the Vistula in Poland (the river along the Danzig, Torun, Kalisz etc. provinces in vanilla EU3).

And hooray for more different-era mods!

[DanubianCossak]

Wow great job mate.

If i may ask, how did you find all those Indian nations? :O

[Lamertu]

Interesting era! I would say there should be Celtic hordes in Europe, regularly invading Italy. And missions for the Greek/ Phoenician states to found colonies all over the mediterranean (Marseille, Nice etc)

[AKronblad]

Super interesting!

Also like your approach of having many small nations, keep it that way because it is probably more effective in prohibiting blobbing (the curse of my 399AD mod.. .)

looking forward to following your progress!

Idea on colouring the countries: I started out in Excel, randomly setting RGB colors (with certain criteria) for each country and then through a simple macro exported each into an individual text file serving as the country's common file, named appropriately of course. some were really ugly and changed manually but at least got different colours...!

[Taylor]

Will Carthage be trade league?

Interesting idea! I haven't touched government forms yet, but a trade-centered government should definitely be in. Although I'm not sure if Carthage should be a trade league because they'll be the only one around, leaving no room for competition.

The Germanic culture-group shouldn't be limited to Scandinavia. Judging by the positions you're using a 1200 BCE map of the Nordic bronze-age culture, but by this time they stretched from the Netherlands to the Vistula in Poland (the river along the Danzig, Torun, Kalisz etc. provinces in vanilla EU3).

And hooray for more different-era mods!

Thanks! I'm not so sure about the Germanics. I know the English wikipedia suggests they were more spread out by 650 BC, but the Dutch site disagrees. As does Colin McEvedy's 'New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History'. I have to look into it more.

Wow great job mate.

If i may ask, how did you find all those Indian nations? :O

Thanks! There's a bunch of maps on wikipedia of ancient India. Some of them contradict each other. The one that had the most names on it was this one: click!

Interesting era! I would say there should be Celtic hordes in Europe, regularly invading Italy. And missions for the Greek/ Phoenician states to found colonies all over the mediterranean (Marseille, Nice etc)

Yeah I agree on both points. I even think that there should be events for the Greeks where a colony declares independence as soon as it's grown enough. Of course it should somehow still be advantageous to colonize so I was thinking it should either have some bad effects if you don't, or there should be some bonusses, such as having a new ally or something.

Super interesting!

Also like your approach of having many small nations, keep it that way because it is probably more effective in prohibiting blobbing (the curse of my 399AD mod.. .)

looking forward to following your progress!

Idea on colouring the countries: I started out in Excel, randomly setting RGB colors (with certain criteria) for each country and then through a simple macro exported each into an individual text file serving as the country's common file, named appropriately of course. some were really ugly and changed manually but at least got different colours...!

Hm, I was thinking something similar indeed. I already used scripts to strip all provinces of their owners, cores and religion; might as well use scripts to color nations.

[Nuril]

Thanks! I'm not so sure about the Germanics. I know the English wikipedia suggests they were more spread out by 650 BC, but the Dutch site disagrees. As does Colin McEvedy's 'New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History'. I have to look into it more.

Are you sure? I took a look at the Dutch wiki and their map in the section on Origin that is closer to this time where the Jastorf culture, that came from the Nordic Iron Age, is spread from Holland to what, in EU3, would be roughly Hinterpommern-Neumark.

Yeah I agree on both points. I even think that there should be events for the Greeks where a colony declares independence as soon as it's grown enough. Of course it should somehow still be advantageous to colonize so I was thinking it should either have some bad effects if you don't, or there should be some bonusses, such as having a new ally or something.

Just remember to severely tone down the "Horde captures province" event, otherwise the Celts will own splintered Italy on Day 2! The whole process should be less of a big deal, tbh, given that it wasn't empire-building conquests. They just liked their gold.

[Dutchling]

Looks very interesting! Can't wait to see it (semi-)finished.

[Taylor]

Are you sure? I took a look at the Dutch wiki and their map in the section on Origin that is closer to this time where the Jastorf culture, that came from the Nordic Iron Age, is spread from Holland to what, in EU3, would be roughly Hinterpommern-Neumark.

Yeah, look at the top right picture in the section "Oorsprong". I take it to mean the purple area is the Germanic expansion during the time 500BC-60BC.

About the hordes: the first version probably won't have Celt hordes at all, since for the first century or so they were not that important. When I make them I will debate about whether to give them nomad government or just tribal. (b/c I'm not so sure vanilla-style hordes would work that well in this mod)

[bananafishtoday]

Oh my god this looks likes it's going to be amazing. Can't wait to try it!

As for the King of Zhou... de facto he was powerless, de jure he was every Chinese duke's liege and the "one true" ruler of China. Maybe he could be an OPM with guarantees from the major Chinese dukedoms or something. I can't think of a good analogy, but although the Zhou king had no power himself, his blessing was a factor in power-plays between the real majors of the region during the earlier part of the Spring and Autumn Period. Also being part of the de jure Zhou realm did matter during the early part of your timeline... eg, Chu was regarded as a barbarian dukedom for some time, and the Zhou dukedoms banded together against them to carve "real" "Chinese" realms out of their lands (Chen and Cai), but as time went on, this distinction blurred.

Afaik, during the feudal period (before your startdate) Zhou was the boss applesauce. Early Spring/Autumn he was the king with a wink and a nudge, later Spring/Autumn he didn't matter but warfare was still relatively low-impact. Depending on who you asked, the Warring States period began in 475 BC or in 403 BC with the Partition of Jin. Zhou's gone in 256 BC and Qin begins the unification in 230 BC. Obv none of this would be railroaded, just some benchmarks for ideas. And I have no idea when the European/Middle Eastern Bronze/Iron Ages were, but your timeline covers the transition in China. The Chinese were casting iron around the 600's BC and iron was probably widespread around the 300's.

I'm not that well-read on the period though, so others would be able to assist far more than I could...

Edit: Semi-related... in some "what time period would you most want to play a Pdox game about?" thread I gushed over how awesome it would be to play exactly this span of time in China... so I'm very excited.

[AKronblad]

duplicate

[AKronblad]

Yeah, look at the top right picture in the section "Oorsprong". I take it to mean the purple area is the Germanic expansion during the time 500BC-60BC.

About the hordes: the first version probably won't have Celt hordes at all, since for the first century or so they were not that important. When I make them I will debate about whether to give them nomad government or just tribal. (b/c I'm not so sure vanilla-style hordes would work that well in this mod)

The great part about a mod in distant time periods is that it gives you a lot of freedom to find a good game setup that you like, without being totally ahistorical. after all, history and archaeology covering this is probably 95% speculation and 5% fact anyway, if even that.

yes, it seems difficult to make hordes work well so scrapped them from my 399AD mod.

[Qsdd]

I see one problem with this, don't uncolonized land when colonized shift to the nation colonizing's culture? This would make all your work on culture obsolete, wouldn't it?

[Nuril]

Yeah, look at the top right picture in the section "Oorsprong". I take it to mean the purple area is the Germanic expansion during the time 500BC-60BC.

I take it to mean the difference between the Nordic Iron Age cultures and the Jastorf culture. In either case they certainly wouldn't still have 1200 BCE borders, so perhaps conflate the two sides into expanding it one province step beyond that? It does seem a bit conservative, though, since the Celtic culture-group seems very large on the northern front (Note the dotted line).

I see one problem with this, don't uncolonized land when colonized shift to the nation colonizing's culture? This would make all your work on culture obsolete, wouldn't it?

Presumably there'll be some of the more powerful tribes of the region available as primitive nations (since they did have lag time before new things spread to 'em). I'm sure BritNavFan wouldn't mind using the Native Expansion event framework I have in Vinland DW in order to have them in a low techgroup but still have them slowly get colonies in a pre-defined Germania region for their traditional territory (because low tech group AI doesn't colonize by itself).

(Edit!) Ooooh! And if you're planning on letting the game run far enough into the future I'd love to make a version of my "Civil wars" in Vinland DW for this to help with Alexander's utter destruction of the Persian Empire (to let them instantly capture provinces from eachother, so with brilliant Generals they could make them go into retreat despite larger armies and cut through their provinces like butter, but if you fail you're screwed by the wrath of the King of Kings)!

[Taylor]

Oh my god this looks likes it's going to be amazing. Can't wait to try it!

As for the King of Zhou... de facto he was powerless, de jure he was every Chinese duke's liege and the "one true" ruler of China. Maybe he could be an OPM with guarantees from the major Chinese dukedoms or something. I can't think of a good analogy, but although the Zhou king had no power himself, his blessing was a factor in power-plays between the real majors of the region during the earlier part of the Spring and Autumn Period. Also being part of the de jure Zhou realm did matter during the early part of your timeline... eg, Chu was regarded as a barbarian dukedom for some time, and the Zhou dukedoms banded together against them to carve "real" "Chinese" realms out of their lands (Chen and Cai), but as time went on, this distinction blurred.

Afaik, during the feudal period (before your startdate) Zhou was the boss applesauce. Early Spring/Autumn he was the king with a wink and a nudge, later Spring/Autumn he didn't matter but warfare was still relatively low-impact. Depending on who you asked, the Warring States period began in 475 BC or in 403 BC with the Partition of Jin. Zhou's gone in 256 BC and Qin begins the unification in 230 BC. Obv none of this would be railroaded, just some benchmarks for ideas. And I have no idea when the European/Middle Eastern Bronze/Iron Ages were, but your timeline covers the transition in China. The Chinese were casting iron around the 600's BC and iron was probably widespread around the 300's.

I'm not that well-read on the period though, so others would be able to assist far more than I could...

Edit: Semi-related... in some "what time period would you most want to play a Pdox game about?" thread I gushed over how awesome it would be to play exactly this span of time in China... so I'm very excited.

Wow, that's an enthusiastic response! Thanks for the info on China... you certainly know more than I do .

The great part about a mod in distant time periods is that it gives you a lot of freedom to find a good game setup that you like, without being totally ahistorical. after all, history and archaeology covering this is probably 95% speculation and 5% fact anyway, if even that.

Well, that's a great part but of course I try to make it as historical as possible and when the sources contradict each other it can become frustrating... or fun, when I get to do some studying to figure stuff out.

I see one problem with this, don't uncolonized land when colonized shift to the nation colonizing's culture? This would make all your work on culture obsolete, wouldn't it?

Yeah I know but the cultures weren't that much work anyway . It's useful for e.g. when I want to later add tribes in those areas, or when the history unfolds (when the player chooses a different start date), it could be that nations should form in previously uncolonized provinces. Btw the uncolonized provinces are all still of the "generic religion" religion .

[Taylor]

I take it to mean the difference between the Nordic Iron Age cultures and the Jastorf culture. In either case they certainly wouldn't still have 1200 BCE borders, so perhaps conflate the two sides into expanding it one province step beyond that. It does seem a bit conservative, though, since the Celtic culture-group seems very large on the northern front.

Maybe you're right . Though that map is from 600; I have a 650 BC map by the same maker but it doesn't give a border. I'll look into it.

Anyway, it's not that important

[Nomad93]

Nice.But I think you should slightly modify the map,to accomodate more provinces.Calabria(Sybaris)in particular should be splitted in at least 3 or 4 new regions,like Lucania(more or less from Salerno till the Ionian Sea),Croton(upper Calabria)and Rhegion(lower Calabria).
Plus,the Umbri should actually be Picenii,judging from their location.
Carthage should have Canaanite religion.
The Israelite culture should be erased,too,since Israelites were nothing but the monotheistic Canaanite tribe wich eventually became the Jews/Hebrews(no,they weren't nor from Egypt nor from Mesopotamia,they were natives,spoke the same language and,before becoming monotheist,they even had the same religion).