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Zenith Darksea

Κατεπάνω Καλιφορνίας
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Mar 29, 2007
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Greetings! Would you like more depth and character to your Byzantine Empire? Do you find it feels too much like a generic Western European faction? Do you think it's weird that the game mechanics for Byzantium are exactly the same as they are for a feudal country? Well, I can't change that, but I can present to you...

Ousia Romaion - Essence of the Romans v2

Building on my previous work for the Byzantine Classical Greek Spelling mod, I have developed and refined it further to create a much more immersive Byzantine experience.

What the mod does:

  • Corrects all the faulty Greek spelling in the game
  • Adds a range of new court titles for the Byzantine emperor to hand out
  • Gives actual Byzantine names for administrative postings such as Tourmarches and Komes
  • Corrects the incorrect names of provinces and duchies (themata)
  • Adds in new and realistic Byzantine personal names
  • Corrects the names of several historical Byzantine characters
  • And a little bit more...

Furthermore, the mod comes in two versions - Klassika and Dimotiki. The Klassika version will spell all the Greek terms according to standard Classical Greek transliteration rules. The Dimotiki version spells the Greek terms according to how they would actually have been pronounced in the Middle Ages, more or less.

How to Install

Simply download and unzip the files into your /mod directory, and then check off which one you would like to run when you open the launcher. The changes are mostly cosmetic (although some new minor titles are added), so you should be able to run this with most other mods.

Recommended in Addition...

I suggest that you run this along with the Enhanced Portraits Mod in order to see your Orthodox bishops wear the correct attire and grow proper beards as they should.

Download Link

http://www.filefactory.com/file/8kqcbrf2r6r/n/Ousia_Romaion_v2_zip

Screenshots









 
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How would you pull of the theme system if you could?

PS was ERE empire now for having a insane imperial court full ritual crazy clothing and so much intrigue to point it would make littlefinger blush?
 
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Thank you for this! I was using this excellent mod since its first version!

You are right about the medieval spelling, however you chose to call the provinces (themata-nice!) with their more or less classical-hellenistic names (for example Demetrias in place of Thessaly as is in the vanilla version, sounds about right for the time period). If you decide to keep it that way (I'm fully aware you need to make concessions due to the game's "universal" structure), maybe you should consider swapping the positions of Phokis and Hellas (Hellas is in the region of Phthia -the country of Achilles, while Phokis is on the Corinthian gulf). Judging from the screenshots, that's about it :cool:

P.S.: Can you tackle with the default latin CoAs? I know proper byzantine CoAs that span through to 1204 are also a bit a-historical, but would still be better than what we have...
 
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A follow up post for more specific suggestions:

-Name Attike to Athens (Athenai), or maybe Attikoboeotia as the game province covers both. These were of course part of the thema of Hellas (which comprised what you have as Hellas, Phokis, Thessalia and Attica, so maybe themata should read "dutchies").

-Keep Arta (or rename to Akarnania) if it has to exist alongside Epirus. Epirus was formed -by that name- as a despotate later on, so maybe both provinces should be merged as Nikopolis (I know this involves editing the map).

-Moreas actually refers to the whole of Peloponnesus under the Paleologians, including the (former francish) principality of Achaea. For the province of Corinth as it stands, maybe Argolis is more appropriate. Current-day (and ancient) Messenia was under the control of Methone for most of the time in question; while not an expert on the matter, I think Messene was but a rememberance :) Kalamai was also quite important at one stage, although I think neither of these forts/ports actually lent their name to the lands surrounding them.

-Thessalonike should feature quite prominently, as it was after all the second most important city in the empire and the seat of its own thema. The lands to the east belonged to the thema of Macedonia; Rodope is certainly a modern designation of this province and Maritza is most definitely bulgarian; I suggest using Romylia instead. Adrianoupolis with its lands lies to the northeast (Kallipolis below sounds right) and Constantinopolis dominates Thrake(Thrace).

It's not my intention to sound obtuse; I like very much what you are doing as you appear to be versed in matters of byzantine history. I just wish a small contribution to this mod which is by far the most oriented among those tackling with souping up the ERE.

P.S.: You nailed the Asia Minor part of things pretty well, as far as I can see :thumbs up:
 
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Make Byzantines own Bari and be at war with the normans at 1066
 
-Name Attike to Athens (Athenai), or maybe Attikoboeotia as the game province covers both. These were of course part of the thema of Hellas (which comprised what you have as Hellas, Phokis, Thessalia and Attica, so maybe themata should read "dutchies").

Well, 'Attikoboiotia' was not ever actually used as a word, as far as I'm aware. I don't want to split hairs too much, so I think I'll leave it as Attike. I take your point about Phokis being in the wrong place though - I hadn't picked up on that.

-Keep Arta (or rename to Akarnania) if it has to exist alongside Epirus. Epirus was formed -by that name- as a despotate later on, so maybe both provinces should be merged as Nikopolis (I know this involves editing the map).

Sorry, you're not going to get any map editing out of me! As for the province of Epeiros, I may rename it to Bouthroton. I'm tempted to rename Arta to Akarnania, but I'm not sure if the Byzantines actually used that term in the Middle Ages.

-Moreas actually refers to the whole of Peloponnesus under the Paleologians, including the (former francish) principality of Achaea. For the province of Corinth as it stands, maybe Argolis is more appropriate. Current-day (and ancient) Messenia was under the control of Methone for most of the time in question; while not an expert on the matter, I think Messene was but a rememberance Kalamai was also quite important at one stage, although I think neither of these forts/ports actually lent their name to the lands surrounding them.

Under the Palaeologans, yes. But for much of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it did not include the principality of Achaea. I may rename the province to Lakonia, though, as I'm not sure if 'Morea' is really correct for the eleventh century. 'Argolis' is an option, but 'Korinthia' was itself used to describe the territory around Corinth. Argolis sounds rather too classicising for my liking, and so I prefer Korinthia here. I forget exactly what the configuration of towns in Messenia is - I didn't really change the status quo of what Paradox did, I just renamed things. I'll take another look at it.

-Thessalonike should feature quite prominently, as it was after all the second most important city in the empire and the seat of its own thema. The lands to the east belonged to the thema of Macedonia; Rodope is certainly a modern designation of this province and Maritza is most definitely bulgarian; I suggest using Romylia instead. Adrianoupolis with its lands lies to the northeast (Kallipolis below sounds right) and Constantinopolis dominates Thrake(Thrace).

'Thessalonike' does indeed lend its name to a Thema - look it up on the duchy map mode, it's there. As for the immediate territory around it, I think that Pieria is an accurate description of what you see on the map. Rodope and Maritza are geographical names, the former being a mountain range and the latter being a river. Since we don't actually have specific Byzantine names for those geographical units that you see on the map, I chose them as being suitable geographic designations. Now, you're right, Maritza was a Bulgarian name. The Greek name was Hebros. However, believe it or not, the Bulgarians were present in the area for so long and left such a strong mark on it that Byzantine Greek writers of the Middle Ages adopted their terminology for several geographical featres, including that river. I made a point of specifically checking how Byzantine Greek texts refer to the Hebros, and they do indeed call it the Maritza, even in Greek.

P.S.: Can you tackle with the default latin CoAs? I know proper byzantine CoAs that span through to 1204 are also a bit a-historical, but would still be better than what we have...

Nope, sorry. I don't know how to edit this, and I wouldn't have the time.
 
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Fair points all around. I guess having to be constrained by the mechanics of the game leads to trade-offs. However, historical flavor begs to disregard modern-day geographical analogies and conventions (yes e.g., Pieria is indeed the name of the region that's there on the CK map, but was it ever an administrative entity, and so on, Laconia, Corinthia and whatnot). Same goes for cultural influences; I'm aware of the origins of several names (the river Maritza -in fact Evros is rather a modern invention serving political afterthoughts), but would they come so far as to dictate official nomenclature whithin the empire?

Anyway you're doing your best, so please keep up!
 
As you say, the mechanics of the game lead to many trade-offs. You ask if any of these areas like Pieria, Corinthia etc. were used as administrative entities, and the answer is that, in many cases, they were not. Alternatively, some of them were at some times but not at all times. However, the game mechanics dictate that these geographical entities are present as necessary territorial units, so there they are. I have to call them something.

Thanks for your encouragement!
 
Have you thought of doing a cursus honorum, proper for the XI century? I am experimenting with one for my mod covering Iberia and wondered if you were doing the same?

Also, will titles in the empire remain feudal or are you going for a provincial system where a doux would be a republican titleholder?
 
Have you thought of doing a cursus honorum, proper for the XI century? I am experimenting with one for my mod covering Iberia and wondered if you were doing the same?

Also, will titles in the empire remain feudal or are you going for a provincial system where a doux would be a republican titleholder?

I am best a amateur Historian worst, a know it all that knows nothing on subject. Now I have bit understanding when comes ERE, but don;t know if was cursus honorum system during that point in history, but I could bet money it was alive in some form, pc if could come up with provisonal structure that be great, combo that speical event for ere empire and ambtious oomy that so much depth.
 
What I would like is a proper system of governorships or whatnot, but I'm afraid we'll probably have to wait for Paradox to do that.
 
Hey, Catapane of California! Can I please use [(large) part of] this mod for the one I'm actually working on? You'll be credited of course.
 
A noobs suggestion: maybe you could add some sort of special traits for all Byzantine characters so that they rebel less easily, but when they do they are very dangerous (so youactually fear about coups more)? I meanthe Roman Empire was not a feudal state so the local governors were not like European feudal lords... It would also be interesting to implement some sort of changes for post
1080 dates since the Empire was quite different during the Komnenoi. Same for post 1204 dates, of course. The army system should be a bit different since Roman armies were a lot different than western ones, but I am not aware if this is possible or not. Could be interesting to have the Scholai units and other famous tagmata, though.

Anyway, this is just some ideas, I just wanted to thank you for the amazing work you have done here and I hope to see more in the future!
 
I doing alot research at moment on army, government and social history of byzantine during middle period. Interestedly game being when was no aristocracy, during time period, and this would be over simplification a bit depending on who asking, but all the political power comes from the emperor and his court in Constantinople.

What Emperor during time period keep pretty good control over the elite society, by rotation senior military posts and getting ride of the trouble makers.