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Those places were all Hellenised before Rome came along. In otherwords the city states of that map all used Greek as their Lingua Franca and shared a common culture. The Germanic / SPQR Oppressed them and the ICXN liberated them, briefly. Of course we are going to disagree the moment you posted that propaganda map. The Romans fed on the Carcus of the exhausted Diadochi and oppressed the free people of that region. The Germanics were the worse of the two. The real story of Spartacus is that he led the enslaved Greek population towards freedom from the Germanic occupied Magna Gracia. Latin was an enforced artificial language, the Italiotes and Hispania and Southern France and Britain spoke Greek.
This is an online image that shows some of the Greek colonies in Europe but it is an under statement the map you posted is an over statement. For example at some point before Alexander the Great the entirety of Lybia and Egypt and even as far as Ethiopia had been Hellenised. There was no achievement by Rome militarily that wasn't already achieved by peace with Hellenisation.

 

If your map is incorrect by not including enough Greek influence and my map is incorrect by including too much Roman influence, it sounds like in order for us to agree with your conclusion, we first need to agree that both maps are incorrect.

 

Yes they are for those exact reasons.

 

I'm not seeing how the red map is an exaggeration or propaganda. I've been to bath, i've been to hadrian's wall and the antonine wall, while the greeks never reached the north coast of france. The romans brought extended periods of growth and even their roads are still visible today, roman culture certainly had time to spread to the furthest reaches of the empire's borders, while things such as the rapid expansion and eaqually rapid collapse of macedon achieved little but renaming dozens of cities to alexandria. Both maps seem to accurately represent the influence of roman and hellenic cultures respectively, and that rome ended having a far greater impact.

Putting that aside however, the civilsations in game range from ancient egyptians to relatively late-period norse. the Roman empire falls within that time frame very easily and is certainly significant enough to be worthy of note, and indeed was originally intended to be the 4th civilsation added to the game, not to mention the most important part that many people are looking forward to playing as rome. I don't think it can really be questioned whether the romans belong in AoEo.

 

MechSmith you haven't read much about ancient Greece to make the comments you have.

1. The name Britain comes from the explorer Pytheas who circumnavigated the UK. Archaeologists contradict many historians with evidence indicating the Greeks were mining in the UK.
2. Even Stonehenge was influenced by the Greeks. - https://translate.google.com/transl...o-arxaious-ellines-to-stoounxentz&prev=search
3. Hadrian was one of the Italiotes/Greek speaking Romans
4. Rome and Roman Empire are different things. Rome started as a Greek colony, The Roman Empire was a universal empire. The Roman Empire began and ended as a Greek city but in between it was many things including Hijacked, Universal, Christain, Pagan etc. Old Neapolis was Rome and it was a Greek Colony. The colony became multicultural and then the Empire was formed over the top of the Empires of the Diadochi, not all just the Mediterranean. But when Byzantium took back control over Alexander's empire they expanded in Greek fashion beyond any military achievement. There is a reason why before the USA and Australian and Canada and Latin American colonisation the biggest religious factions pre 1700's AD became Eastern Orthodox, it was the one true Apostolic and Catholic church. Even Ghengis Khan's wife/wives? was a Greek speaking Christian princess from Constantinople. Some suggest he was going to convert and that is why they murdered him.
5. The silk road was opened and kept open by the Greeks of Alexander through to the Eastern Romans. The Ancient Greeks are even said to have influenced the building of the Teraccota Army.
6. The Roman empire was a Greek speaking Empire. Latin was only ever used in teh West by the Germanics who infiltrated the Empire and forced it as an Artificial language. It is the reason why modern Italy still teaches Greek in schools but not Latin. It is the reason that According to Warren Treadgold, every emperor of the Roman empire since Augustus spoke and wrote Greek. It is the reason that the Bible had spread so rapidly in it's Koine Greek form from Britain to India later on. Greek wasn't the upper class language it was the common language of the Empire. Even those outside the border of Rome considered Greek as a valuable language such as those in Parthia and Bactria.
7. Greek culture and religion road on the back of the Roman empire. But for a long time Germanics hijacked the empire and their culture also spread. Look at Galatia in Anatolia for example.
8. The propaganda map for the Roman Empire is entirely without justification as most of the cities were coastal in antiquity and hardly any inland cities existed unless they had specific value like trade or commerce. This map shows 1200BC to 2 BC the Greek colonies exclusively. But again it is an understatement when compared with the impact of the Ancient Greek language and culture on these regions. I mean Pytheas reached as far as Iceland and some Latin American archaeologists suggest there was trade between Mayan and ancient Egypt and Greece...But History is written by the victors not the losers and so the Hellenistic side of the story is not present in this games rendition of the Romans or the Roman empire.


Now regarding the game. Rome as a city state should have been Neapolis not Capua. Plato lived most of his life in Sicily as a captive to a Greek king so technically Plato's Republic was trying to teach the Romans/Neapolians that they should abandon Chieftans and Kingdoms, something they probably inherited from their neighbouring Germanic tribes. The army of the Romans was Hellenistic with little modification. Phalanxes were still used as were cavalry and pelstats or auxilla. I just can't see how a game with empires starting in 1600BC can span to 100AD which is when most of the changes occur and when Rome can be considered an Empire. Why not take it the next step and go to 300AD and have Byzantium and their jet/steam engines shoot Greek fire... It is out of place.

 

I just wanted to add also this reference for your development team as it highlights the Hellenic nature of Rome as a city State and it's transition once occupied by surrounding migrants of Germanic heritage. https://translate.google.com/transl...m/2014/06/27/httpwp-mep1op6y-1v1/&prev=search

 

I would refute your points one by one but so many of them go against the academic concencus on the matter, some are downright wrong, and most are very misrepresentative that i can't help but feel you're being disingenuous, undermining the purpose of a historical discussion. You nitpick the differences between the city of rome, and the empire that it eventually projected its power into, yet you conflate the slow migration over millennia across europe (leading to some from what we'd now call greece spreading to many places) without noting the difference between that and hellenic culture. You dismiss roman coastal cities (again, a city like bath is not in the slightest bit coastal, but hey) yet count coastal greek colonies, and indeed some phoenecian ones.

I usually love conversations like this but you're coming at it with a bias and an agenda, and what facts you do have right are very carefully cherrypicked- without context you are certainly using them misrepresentatively.

 

1. Greece didn't spread everywhere there was no such thing as Greece, it is a modern concept after the fall of Constantinople. Hellenism was spread by Italiotes, Hispania, Marsielle/Celts, Bactrians, Parthians, Athenians and Spartans to name a few.
2. Bath has inscriptions written in Greek so I am not sure what you are trying to argue and Hadrians wall also has Greek inscriptions so again I was confused what you are trying to point out. This has little to prove regarding the map issue.

The Roman era saw the coastal cities at war with those inland people which tipped the balance of peace and in some ways instigated a reaction from the Germanic people, who were not passive but at bay. The conquests of the Roman Generals in the West saw a land grab inland yes I agree with that point. But that land grab initiated severe oppression. Pre-Roman Gaul was Hellenised throughout through contact with the coastal cities. It wasn't like some writers try to portrait that the Celts were wild barbarians. They printed coins with Greek inscriptions prior to Roman conquest. None of the maps found online reflect this but some hint to it and it can be found if you look up Pre-Roman Gaul on the Wiki. So granted Gaul was Hellenised as was Hispania and Southern Britain by both movements the Hellenisation and Roman period. But southern Germania and most of the regions were provincial and this map shows this more accurately: However it is somewhat an overstatement too. Pockets of Germanic migrants formed cities in the Senatorial provinces and some attempts to heavily colonise the provincials failed. Romans proved to be good at conquering but not good at colonising and resorted to oppression which didn't work and by 476AD they lost everything in the West.

 

Whelp, then I guess the Romans aren’t for you. We can’t please them all.

 

Romans aren't for me? Very Funny. What is not for me is your version of them. The same propaganderous version we have seen since Hollywood decided to make movies of them.

 

We are fans of Age of Empires Online and are developing a civ that fits into this game. To do so, we are literally following the plans of the folks who created this game in the first place. AoEO blends history and fantasy. AoEO paints in broad brushstrokes, looks at history through a funhouse mirror, and doesn’t get mired in PhD level nuance.

As developers ourselves know, we have a duty to create content that best delivers excitement and joy to our players. To this extent, we’ve received extremely good feedback from our players about our decision to build the Romans.

It’s certainly fine for anyone to disagree with any of our choices. Each of us on the team disagree with all sorts of decisions we’ve made as a group. That’s how groups work. But we are doing our best. It may be your opinion that our Romans are missing something, but I would urge you to not just sit back and complain but to dig into the civ design to explain precisely what you’d do differently.

 

Well, I am not going to have the time to go through in detail the things I would like to see. Your choice to do the campaigns based on the Roman Republic obviously your choice has an underlying purpose. I am not getting in the way of that. I would have taken it from it's inception as a Hellenic colony of Arcadians trying to defend against surrounding tribes like the Etruscans. A couple of tower defense maps, some build walls on hills maps, fortify the city of Rome. Then jump ahead from 1200BC to the Roman Republic. The three heroes are all good and all but no-one knows them really and I think from memory one or some of them became dictators. Pick one like Horatio and defend one of the defensive structures since we don't have bridges. I would have a quest line of Plato trapped in Syracuse trying to convince people that a Republic is the way to go. A few maps of cat n mouse escape for old Plato, a few maps of conversion maybe depending on units. Alternatively laser beam invention of Archimedes burning ships and protecting Syracuse while Romans invade the island in the siege of Syracuse. Cicero ordering the Roman units you command to not kill Archemedes in one map / but you do and it's still a pass but show some remorse. Then jump ahead again and play as Spartacus with a few DM style military campaigns and one RM style game to prepare for the real thing. I think that would be more fun. As for Unit/military I would keep the units the same as the Greeks aside skins and stats. Weaker cavalry and cheaper more disposable infantry so that they excel at replenishing their forces. I would aim to make their infantry with replenishing power as effective as the Cavalry for the Greeks. Maybe phalanx type unit. That's all for now. Good luck. Oh and if you can't be bothered doing any of that hang in the background somewhere on the GUI,Ρώμη to mean Rome

 

Unfortunately, we know almost nothing specific about the founding of Rome. Evidence varies. The Romans themselves tended to subscribe to different legends (Romulus and Remus on the one hand and Aeneas of Troy on the other). Around 0 CE the Greek historian Strabo claimed Rome was originally a Greek colony, and we know there were many of those in Italy. Archeological evidence paints a far more humble picture. We have scattered finds suggesting people lived at the future site of Rome as far back as 1700 BCE. We’ve found burials from about 1000 BCE and huts on the Palatine Hill from around 750. Meanwhile, the linguistic evidence demonstrates a very close connection to the ancient people of Latium. Rome was definitely not simply a Greek colony. Romans spoke Latin, and Latin is not an offshoot of Greek. Latin is an offshoot of the languages spoken in Italy far before the Greeks arrived.