Ancient Empires: 222 BC

[Frostion]

@Name Since your map is set to start 222 BC, have you based the west african territories on Phoenician settlements of the time or names of tribes? I found this interesting info:
"(...) Phoenicians, they are known to have settled only thirteen trading centers between 1000 and 200 B.C., beyond the Strait of Gibraltar: five in Spain, including Karteia, Gades/Cadiz, Onoba, Gadeira and Tartessus; with eight in Morocco, including Tingus, Silis or Zilil, Asilah, Lixus, Thamusida/Kenitra, Sala, Anfa, and Mugador/Essaouira, which was the furthes south."
There is a nice map also:
http://nephicode.blogspot.com/2018/12/where-did-phoenicians-sail-part-iii.html?m=1

[Cernel]

@Name said in Ancient Empires: 222 BC:

@Cernel @Frostion I was meant to write Mauretania (I thought so far it's only written this way) but was probably influenced by the "Mauri" tribe spelling without noticing. The Romans called Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis the conquered regions of the Mauri and the Masaesyli (west Numidians) respectively.

In ancient Latin, you say "maurus" singular and "mauri" plural, that corresponds to English "moor" and "moors".

So, I'm guessing "mauritania" might be allright, hence I googled some, and found this:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Mauritania#Latin

Maurītānia f sg (genitive Maurītāniae); first declension
Mauretania (ancient Berber kingdom)

So, it appears that "Mauritania" is an actual legitimate alternative form of "Mauretania".

However, I cannot recall having ever seen it written anything else but as "Mauretania", as long as not referring to the modern country.

[Name]

@Frostion for the coastline I've used mostly phoenician/carthaginian colonies, and it was easy, many to choose from including several in your link (for example Shalat is Sala). The interior was often more difficult and I had to use tribe names we don't know much of, or that the first reference we have on them is after the start date, in some cases even a few centuries later (same is true for central europian tribes to a degree). In some cases I did a bit of reasonable guesswork or intentional slight misplacement to fit gameplay or fill an area.

@Cernel So no big deal anyway, especially since it will only be used if I add such (greater) region names on the relief, work for much later. But if anyone has preferences on spelling of anything I don't mind much to change things, especially for now that I don't have to change several files yet. Same for alternative tribe/city names for a territory, though I might be a little more picky on those. Maybe we could name Ipsos "Heppses", after @Hepps

[redrum]

@Name Just want to say, great work on the territory images so far. You are giving @Hepps and @Frostion a run for their money. For naming, generally I try to go for recognizable names (cities/regions/etc) then whatever I can find to make them historically accurate. I also lean towards using the "english" names vs regional/latin names. Especially for this time period, most players probably won't recognize 80% of the names so its not the end of the world if you have to do some guess work.

[Name]

@redrum thanks

I also lean towards using the "english" names vs regional/latin names.

I can interpret this in a number of possible ways, not sure exactly what you mean.

[redrum]

@Name So for example I'd usually choose Brittany instead of Bretagne or other options listed in wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany

[Name]

@redrum I see. Was wondering about the second part. Regional as of modern languages or roman/latin versions of them (or even roman administrative regions),

[redrum]

@Name ah. I'd probably favor the Roman names as I think they might be more recognizable but tougher call there.

[Cernel]

Even if you'd go with English names in this one, you would get "Rome" instead of "Roma", but very little else. Most English names would be the latin ones, anyways, by far.

[Hepps]

@redrum said in Ancient Empires: 222 BC:

@Name Just want to say, great work on the territory images so far. You are giving @Hepps and @Frostion a run for their money.

Easy there tiger... lets not go crazy here. @Frostion is still the undisputed Admiral of sexification! Though given the progress I'm seeing on this map I will be honest and say I am starting to get a little white knuckled.

[Name]

@Hepps said in Ancient Empires: 222 BC:

@redrum said in Ancient Empires: 222 BC:

@Name Just want to say, great work on the territory images so far. You are giving @Hepps and @Frostion a run for their money.

Easy there tiger... lets not go crazy here. @Frostion is still the undisputed Admiral of sexification! Though given the progress I'm seeing on this map I will be honest and say I am starting to get a little white knuckled.

Hey let's not be competitive and just accept the truth in @redrum's statement.

Carthage & surroundings

Syrtis & Cyrenaica

[Name]

So my next question is, are there any special considerations on sea territory placement? So far I'm thinking they should be slightly larger on average than land ones, and also following the coastline, with open seas impassable (makes sense with ancient galley navies, they were not really storm resistant so they avoided straying too far from land).

[Cernel]

@Name If you have it as Carthage, that means you are going with English names, thus also Rome, and so on. However, I advise you not using English names if they derive not from the original one (for example, not using Naples if that derives from the medieval name Napoli, not from the classic name Neapolis).

For the high sea, you can have a bunch of canals making possible going into and out those sea zones only during non combat move, then adding a neutral combat units in them, and having your sea units able to move through it but not ending non combat movement with it.

[redrum]

@Name The biggest thing to think about is size and how much movement the various naval units will have. As an example, 270BC has fairly large sea zones but pretty cheap ships that have only 1 movement. Most maps have more average sea zones and most ships have 2 movement. So depends how you envision naval and amphibious gameplay.

[Name]

@Cernel I wouldn't use Naples or Napoli in that case. What you see for now doesn't mean I've totally settled, but will probably go for english.

For the high sea that sounds too much imo.

@redrum My ships are fast at 3 or 4 movement. Again, makes sense with the fast, fragile galleys of the era. Since there are generally higher defense than attack stats, terrain bonuses and static defenses, there is a quite strong defenders advantage. So mixing realism with gameplay, I think it's a good idea to have fleets as a means to strike rather distant, less defended territories.

[Cernel]

@Name By the way, since it is practically the same of what you are already doing, if you want to review all 270BC names, making a full list of all those that are wrongly named or wrongly placed (Siwa…), and post it in the 270BC thread, that would be helpful, in case at any point someone might fix that map too (the issue is that, names being images, one would need to remake all the work, unless @Hepps remembers and can tell exactly all steps to follow to recreate the naming images with different letter combinations, so to do it only for the new ones).

[Name]

@Cernel I can I guess, maybe the right time will be while I'll be reviewing/settling on the final region names.

Egypt

[Hepps]

@Name said in Ancient Empires: 222 BC:

@Cernel I wouldn't use Naples or Napoli in that case. What you see for now doesn't mean I've totally settled, but will probably go for english.

For the high sea that sounds too much imo.

@redrum My ships are fast at 3 or 4 movement. Again, makes sense with the fast, fragile galleys of the era. Since there are generally higher defense than attack stats, terrain bonuses and static defenses, there is a quite strong defenders advantage. So mixing realism with gameplay, I think it's a good idea to have fleets as a means to strike rather distant, less defended territories.

I'm having a hard time envisioning how you could pull this off without it feeling really restrictive. I get what you are going for but it feels kinda excessively limiting on a map of this grand scale. I'd almost rather see you have 2 types of SZ... Coastal and Open Water... where if your fleet(s) ends its turn in an open water sea zone there is something like a 1/12 chance that each unit could be lost to Poseidon's wrath.

[Name]

@Hepps Imagine something like this (from a previous version of the map). You can sail around the marked sea zone following the coastal seas. The chance for storms, even for coastal regions, has crossed my mind, but I'll skip it or leave it for later.

@Cernel I checked 270BC a bit. Many of the corrections would need redrawed borders to make sense, while others using the name of some obscure/low populated region.

[redrum]

@Name Yeah, I think you could do something like that though I would probably also color the impassible sea zones darker or grayer so its easier to see on first look.