Guess the start date

[Te. Kenzo]

Now I know a DLC that I want: about cristianity and eastern religions.
However as other said, this is a much better start date than the one of Eu: Rome, everything can happen finally.

 

[Fishman786]

about the ending date i think it will reach the 4th century ad at least . they have mentioned the waves of barbarians migrants invading your whealtiest provinces so i presume they meant the late antiquity and the migratory invasions + the huns .
also i dont think the ending date is important especially that last pdx games are sandboxes and dont end like the previous eu4 and ck2 .
hoi4 is about ww2 only but you still can play indefinetly.


also like the mongols in ck2 i think that the migratory invasions + the huns would be a perfect late game challenge .

Barbarians were invading the Roman Empire since before it even became an Empire. Even if we don't count the Gallic sack of Rome (which wasn't really a migration) there were German invasions as early as 113 BCE in the case of the Cimbri and Teutones.

 

[Belegurt]

450 AVC

i call cheating!!!

Everyone and theyr mothers know that Rome was really born the day that troy fell, its the event that started it all with enea's journey, didone's revenge and stuff. As such i ask for that to be the starting day!

on a more serious note, may i ask why are u using a non canonical fake convention for the year?
Its not like it was an used convention in Rome, we didnt use that... we used to call years by the name of our consuls or emperors, like all civilized peeps should do

 

[caesarian]

i call cheating!!!

Everyone and theyr mothers know that Rome was really born the day that troy fell, its the event that started it all with enea's journey, didone's revenge and stuff. As such i ask for that to be the starting day!

on a more serious note, may i ask why are u using a non canonical fake convention for the year?
Its not like it was an used convention in Rome, we didnt use that... we used to call years by the name of our consuls or emperors, like all civilized peeps should do

I imagine because it's easier and also, despite the name, not a solely Roman game

 

[Will Steel]

on a more serious note, may i ask why are u using a non canonical fake convention for the year?
Its not like it was an used convention in Rome, we didnt use that... we used to call years by the name of our consuls or emperors, like all civilized peeps should do

That would only work if Rome was the only playable faction and nothing else outside of Rome was focused on.

This wouldn't work because there is also the Indian Panchang calendar, the Hellenic calendar, the Judean calendar and the Egyptian one, the Zoroastrian Persian calendar. All of those have to be considered, not just Roman one.

It wouldn't make sense if someone playing in Egypt, Greece or India determined his year by "Consulship of XYZ and ABC".

They could not use the modern Gregorian years because game engine limitation against negative year numbers, like in every other Paradox game.

So it is best to use Ab Urbe Condita for now, with a mouse-over tip calculating and showing the actual year (or displaying it on the side).

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

i call cheating!!!

Everyone and theyr mothers know that Rome was really born the day that troy fell, its the event that started it all with enea's journey, didone's revenge and stuff. As such i ask for that to be the starting day!

on a more serious note, may i ask why are u using a non canonical fake convention for the year?
Its not like it was an used convention in Rome, we didnt use that... we used to call years by the name of our consuls or emperors, like all civilized peeps should do

Even if you're playing as Rome, the underlying engine needs to have years run in numbers.

There's no guarantee that your Rome will be using the consular system, or an Imperial one. Other systems may apply.

If you *are* using consular dates, then your consuls almost certainly will not match historical ones.

It's difficult to give future dates in a system named or number after people who aren't yet in office. Yes, you can give "this building will complete in X years, Y months", but that's harder to keep track of mentally than "this will complete on XX/YY/ZZZZ", leading to you being more likely to have to keep checking back.

There's also a possibility of a year having multiple names, not just across multiple countries, but even within just one. If you're a consular republic that forms a dictatorship (meant to be for a limited period), and then gets overthrown by a revolt into an Imperial style monarchy, then that year has potentially three names (the year of the consuls X & Y, The year of the dictator Z, and the first year of the Emperor A).

Displaying a day/month/year calendar is also more convenient from a graphic interface point of view than having to arrange for it to be able to contain two full three (or more!) part Latin names of effectively arbitrary length.

It prevents you from having calculations accidentally involve negative dated years. Something that references 20 years ago can simply use (date-20) years as the reference, rather than having to look up what that year would be called and then squeeze that into a text box along with the rest of the event text.

It's also kind of handy to have everyone looking at the same calendar, even if it isn't precisely an accurate or historical one.

 

[Cephei80]

Barbarians were invading the Roman Empire since before it even became an Empire. Even if we don't count the Gallic sack of Rome (which wasn't really a migration) there were German invasions as early as 113 BCE in the case of the Cimbri and Teutones.

most wasnt really big migrations compared to the late antiquity .
also the german migrations and the huns would make a perfect late game crisis dont you think ?

i just see no sense for them to make it just a 300 years short campagne . its about imperator so i guess that forming the empire or something equivalent elsewhere might be just the beggining .
my guess is its from the samnite wars to the migratory invasions .

 

[Gurkhal]

most wasnt really big migrations compared to the late antiquity .
also the german migrations and the huns would make a perfect late game crisis dont you think ?

i just see no sense for them to make it just a 300 years short campagne . its about imperator so i guess that forming the empire or something equivalent elsewhere might be just the beggining .
my guess is its from the samnite wars to the migratory invasions .

I really hope this is true.

 

[KaleRaven]

I don't think negative years is as big an issue as claimed. The engine can use any arbitrary internal counting system to track years (such as the "Holocene Era"). Then you just need a very simple function to convert engine years into display years. A text that contains a string like "date-20" would need to be parsed to look up the variables anyway, especially with modern localization requirements. The parser would contain functions to substitute the appropriate values anyway, including calling a function to report the date.

AUC is somewhat as anachronistic as well (it was not commonly used) and the months are not appropriate either, so there are already compromises to maintain comprehensibility.

The only reason I can see using AUC is for a bit of flavor, regardless of it's practicality.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

I don't think negative years is as big an issue as claimed. The engine can use any arbitrary internal counting system to track years (such as the "Holocene Era"). Then you just need a very simple function to convert engine years into display years. A text that contains a string like "date-20" would need to parse and look up the variables anyway, especially with modern localization requirements.

AUC is somewhat as anachronistic as well (it was not commonly used) and the months are not appropriate either, so there are already compromises to maintain comprehensibility.

10 CE - 10 years is 1 BCE, not 0 CE. This is not always as simple as it sounds to get around. There's always at least a minor problem with crossing any epoch date, in software, because it expects that 10-10 is 0, not -1. This has led to some dating systems changing BCE dates when listing them as negative CE ones, since 2 BCE ends up being -1 CE if your numbering system expects a zero.

We have been shown that Clausewitz doesn't like year 0, or negative dates, because of the problems it has with any historical character alive around 1 CE. Ages are wrong because they can't have negative birthdates. The list of characters cuts off at 1 CE because of this

 

[Will Steel]

In EU-Rome, when you moused over the year, the current actual date in Gregorian would be calculated and displayed in a tooltip, without affecting engine calendar which ran with AUC.

They could bring this system back. Or have the dates displayed side-by-side to each other (one real, one calculated BC year).

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

If I can find my copy I'll have to check whether it complains about 0 CE.

I just can't remember if it was physical or a download...

 

[Anna_Gein]

272 B.C.

Edit : 304 B.C. is an odd choice. Antigonos Monophtalmos is not even dead yet.

 

[KaleRaven]

10 CE - 10 years is 1 BCE, not 0 CE. This is not always as simple as it sounds to get around. There's always at least a minor problem with crossing any epoch date, in software, because it expects that 10-10 is 0, not -1. This has led to some dating systems changing BCE dates when listing them as negative CE ones, since 2 BCE ends up being -1 CE if your numbering system expects a zero.

We have been shown that Clausewitz doesn't like year 0, or negative dates, because of the problems it has with any historical character alive around 1 CE. Ages are wrong because they can't have negative birthdates. The list of characters cuts off at 1 CE because of this

Again, this is trivial to get around by having an internal year number that starts much earlier, and a simple function to turn that into a display value. It's no more complicated than a basic if-then statement with integer arithmetic. All actual calculation would be done with the internal date, avoiding any of the issues you state. The display date is only needed when printing to the screen.

This type of functionality is extremely common and is used in any real system that handles dates. The dating system that humans use is not computer-friendly. That's why you have Unix time that counts in seconds from midnight 1/1/1970, which later has to be converted into our expected Years-Months-Days Hours:Minutes:Seconds when displayed to screen. Windows time counts milliseconds from 1/1/1601. Changing from an arbitrary year system like the aforementioned Holocene to CE/BCE is quite simple in comparison.

 

[Fourthspartan56]

Edit : 304 B.C. is an odd choice. Antigonos Monophtalmos is not even dead yet.

Why exactly is this supposed to be a fact that makes the current start date odd?

The ability to play as one of Alexander's generals and stop his empire from falling into nothingness sounds like a perfect opportunity for some alternate history delight.

 

[caedussl]

14 ad seems a decent enddate, that way they also don't need to bother with christianity. If they go further say 68 ad they get into a situation there it would be so many loose threads, it'd be like ending euiv in 1789 (actual end date of original euiii). While ad 14 would have the sort of closure we get from 1821

It's a long time after 14 CE that Christianity becomes a major concept to Rome. 14 as a date would have everything to do with it being the year the founder of the Roman Empire died, as even if they went to the early 100s, Christianity would only be a minor aspect of the game. The area around Europe changes pretty significantly with the rise of the empire led by actual emperors so 14 makes sense for that season, but I don't buy that Christianity plays any impact here. It's best saved if they decide to do an expansion which extends the timeline.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

It's a long time after 14 CE that Christianity becomes a major concept to Rome. 14 as a date would have everything to do with it being the year the founder of the Roman Empire died, as even if they went to the early 100s, Christianity would only be a minor aspect of the game. The area around Europe changes pretty significantly with the rise of the empire led by actual emperors so 14 makes sense for that season, but I don't buy that Christianity plays any impact here. It's best saved if they decide to do an expansion which extends the timeline.

Well, Christianity wouldn't pop at all until about 30 CE if they're keeping it as a historical event. If it's dynamic based on your treatment of the area it is of course possibly to turn up earlier or later, or not at all.

 

[AirikrStrife]

Because if they end it at 68 they would be inclined to somehow have it in game, while not being able to really develop it into the importance christianity would have

 

[Quantum_AI]

This is from the press release: "grand strategy game set in the classical world from the glory days of Athens to the establishment of the Roman Empire four centuries later".

So if the game is starting in around 303 BC, does this mean it will run till 100 AD? Can someone fill me in on what this will mean for playing as the Roman Empire.

 

[Trin Tragula]

Edit : 304 B.C. is an odd choice. Antigonos Monophtalmos is not even dead yet.

And that is a good thing isn’t it?