Valid points. Another "Archimedes" example is Pytheas of Massalia who explored the british isles among other things.
He made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe in about 325 BC, but his description of it, widely known in Antiquity, has not survived.
In this voyage he circumnavigated and visited a considerable part of Great Britain. He is the first person on record to describe the Midnight Sun. The theoretical existence of a Frigid Zone, and temperate zones where the nights are very short in summer and the sun does not set at the summer solstice, was already known. Similarly, reports of a country of perpetual snow and darkness (the country of the Hyperboreans) had reached the Mediterranean some centuries before. Pytheas is the first known scientific visitor and reporter of the Arctic, polar ice, and the Germanic tribes. He introduced the idea of distant Thule to the geographic imagination, and his account of the tides is the earliest known to suggest the moon as their cause. Pytheas may have also reached Iceland
In this voyage he circumnavigated and visited a considerable part of Great Britain. He is the first person on record to describe the Midnight Sun. The theoretical existence of a Frigid Zone, and temperate zones where the nights are very short in summer and the sun does not set at the summer solstice, was already known. Similarly, reports of a country of perpetual snow and darkness (the country of the Hyperboreans) had reached the Mediterranean some centuries before. Pytheas is the first known scientific visitor and reporter of the Arctic, polar ice, and the Germanic tribes. He introduced the idea of distant Thule to the geographic imagination, and his account of the tides is the earliest known to suggest the moon as their cause. Pytheas may have also reached Iceland
So Massalia for example could start the game with a "big" map knowledge of North Europe.
Another important aspect was the Mouseion of Alexandria( the library of Alexandria was part of it)
The Ancient Library of Alexandria.
The Musaeum or Mouseion at Alexandria (Ancient Greek: Μουσεῖον τῆς Ἀλεξανδρείας), which included the famous Library of Alexandria,[1] was an institution founded by Ptolemy I Soter or, perhaps more likely, by his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. This original Musaeum ("Institution of the Muses") was the home of music or poetry, a philosophical school and library such as Plato's Academy, also a storehouse of texts. It did not have a collection of works of art, rather it was an institution that brought together some of the best scholars of the Hellenistic world, analogous to a modern university. This original Musaeum was the source for the modern usage of the word museum.
The Musaeum or Mouseion at Alexandria (Ancient Greek: Μουσεῖον τῆς Ἀλεξανδρείας), which included the famous Library of Alexandria,[1] was an institution founded by Ptolemy I Soter or, perhaps more likely, by his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. This original Musaeum ("Institution of the Muses") was the home of music or poetry, a philosophical school and library such as Plato's Academy, also a storehouse of texts. It did not have a collection of works of art, rather it was an institution that brought together some of the best scholars of the Hellenistic world, analogous to a modern university. This original Musaeum was the source for the modern usage of the word museum.
This was a proto university that spammed lots of new techs and wise man. In fact even Archimides went there as a young man to study. It was also a sign of excellence for the Ptolemies. So what if other Diadochi hegemons built their own also?
