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And I'm pretty sure that centurions did not fight on horseback. At all. Since they were infantry officers.
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Feb 22, 2015 17:06
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Inferior posted:In the fight at the end of the video, I liked all the centurions standing around just watching as you fought three guys at once. Half expected them to get the popcorn out. I love it, it reminds me of extras in hollywood epics like Braveheart and Gladiator that just kinda hop and gesture around in the background.
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Feb 22, 2015 20:05
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Well, you know how much actual thought goes into tech demos: not much, I'd wager. You just take post Marian legionnaires in lorica segmentata (I didn't know they had other armor or basically anything else besides it looking cool), drop some barbarians for them to fight, and you're good to go. Sprinkle words like centurion about, too. Because, most of the public only know about Roman stereotypes, and that's a testudo engaging barbarians, from 700ish BC to almost 500ish AD. You could have the foederati and the Gaul inspired helms and round shields and chain mail, but then your target audience would go "that's not Rome!".
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Feb 23, 2015 05:43
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Calax posted:Also those statues should all be garishly colored.
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Feb 23, 2015 06:46
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Both. I know they've done it on Roman statues and found the colors (as somebody posted) and probably got the idea for it from Greece. Fun little tidbit, Romans were INSANE about ensuring that the letter of the law/religion was followed, but would just screw over the spirit of it. To the point that they had a law on the books requiring that an Emissary be sent out to Enemy Territory with a list of demands that must be met within a time frame (usually a day) or that enemy would officially be at war with Rome. Obviously after they moved out of Italy this became a mite problem because you couldn't quickly get to the frontier fast enough for military operations to really work. The Roman solution? Designate a field in the Forum (I think it was the Forum) as "Enemy Territory". Not a specific enemy, just generic "enemy territory" for this ritual to be performed at. And in theory, the proposed enemy could come to that location and pay off the Romans... but the enemy usually wasn't notified that this was happening until a Legion or two was squatting in their territory.
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Feb 23, 2015 09:28
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Chapter III, in which Poorly Written Novel and I go on a tour of the "White Cliffs" of Dover and debate the existence of a historically dubious harbor chain (and also some people die?), is up! Find it linked in the first post! Expect the collectibles within the week. (Maybe even tomorrow!)
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Mar 2, 2015 05:42
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Roman history lessons are definitely more interesting than the game itself, keep it up history dudes. This game gives God of War a run for historical inaccuracy. At least GoW used the actual pantheon.
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Mar 2, 2015 06:36
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I would really love it if someone could explain those loving towers. Like I say in the video, I'm not a historian at all, but I'm pretty drat sure there wasn't a big gently caress off chain built by the Romans there.
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Mar 2, 2015 06:45
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Novel and I actually took some time afterwards to look up some historical details. As far as chains go, he mentioned he knew of its use in Constantinople, which made it somewhat plausible in Dover. What I ended up finding was there were definitely two Roman lighthouses on either side of the cliffs, but as far as them being two giant gently caress-all towers ala Middle Earth with 6ft chain rungs... I don't think that's accurate at all...
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Mar 2, 2015 20:26
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I'm studying Museum Studies and Archaeology at the moment at University, currently focusing my modules on Roman studies (because that's what my university is especially good for). Its uh, rather hilarious to watch this. I was actually recently down at Portchester castle, a Roman fort on the coast that's been re-purposed a bunch of times over the ages, but still retains the original roman walls. So the construction was mostly flint stone held toward by mortar - any larger limestones were later medieval additions. York, incidentally, shouldn't exist - and marching for it seems like it'd be the stupid choice, given that this game apparently takes place in an alternate version of Boudica's uprising (around 60/61 AD) where she's managed to largely rout the Romans from the British Isles (though evidently not entirely), inspiring other 'barbarians' to revolt in the Empire. Now here's the thing - Dover, well known enough, is on the South East coast of Great Britain. York is roughly halfway between there and Glasgow. Boudica and her allies held most of East Anglia (think of it as Britain's butt). So rather than try to support Londinium or Camulodunum (the initial capital of Roman Britannia, destroyed by Boudica and may have inspired the first chapter), they're marching right by enemy territory halfway up the country. Also, it'd be interesting to see who the hell 'King Oswald' is meant to be, given that's an Anglo-Saxon name and we're five hundred years too early.
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Mar 2, 2015 23:05
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The odds that multiple people in that group at the end were named Marius are actually pretty good because if I remember my high school Roman history correctly there were maybe about two dozen? "personal" (or first) names in widespread use throughout most of the Empire's history. They'd probably be chanting his full name.
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Mar 2, 2015 23:09
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How did they put a Modern Military Shooter/Saving Private Ryan homage in a goddamn game about Romans? 
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Mar 2, 2015 23:48
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Kibayasu posted:The odds that multiple people in that group at the end were named Marius are actually pretty good because if I remember my high school Roman history correctly there were maybe about two dozen? "personal" (or first) names in widespread use throughout most of the Empire's history. They'd probably be chanting his full name. Yep. that would be his praenomen. Romans mainly recognised each by their full name, surname, or cognomen, which was a hereditary "nickname", or combination thereof. So for example, Gaius is your first name (completely generic, like "John"), Julius is your family name, and Caesar (likely "hairy") is your cognomen. Marcus Antonius was just Marcus Antonius. Marcus Tullius Cicero is known almost solely by his cognomen ("chickpea"). Pompey the Great was the rare sort who had an actual nickname (Gnaeus Pompeius "Magnus"). There were also victory titles, such as Africanus, or Germanicus, the latter of which was even used as a first name. Some names we use are actually historical shorthand, like Caligula. Romans could also change their names through adoption or imperial succession (Roman Emperors, for whatever reason, had a hard time having sons). Emperors usually bore several names that reflected their predecessors to emphasise their legitimacy. Gaius Octavius was adopted posthumously and became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, then named himself Imperator Caesar Divi Filius ("Commander Caesar Divine Son"), though people just called him "Caesar". Then he received the additional title of Augustus ("revered"), and that's how we know Gaius Octavius as Augustus. "Augustus" more or less became the imperial title alongside the more generic "imperator," and the emperors adopted it formally, often in addition to "Caesar". "Caesar" eventually became the title of the junior emperor (the Roman Empire became simply too big for one Emperor) or heir presumptive. And as mentioned, some names we use for Romans are historical shorthand. Like Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. We call him Caligula, but he went by Gaius. His nickname meant "little soldier's boot": as a child, his father took him on military campaigns, and in the camps he dressed in a miniature Legionary uniform.  He may have killed people for calling him that as an adult, but that's why we call the twerp Caligula.  The nickname of Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus Pius Augustus has a similar story. He's known as Caracalla, a caracalla being a type of cloak which he loved. Like Caligula, he may have killed people for calling him that. it's plausible, since Caracalla was the second biggest turd to ever become Emperor.Our good friend in this LP was named Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, and was born as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. And returning to Damocles, Romans did use Greek names, especially towards the end of the Empire. Some emperors had Hellenic heritage, like Alexander Severus. Emperor Diocletian is known by his latinised Greek name (Diocles). e: His full name is Marius Titus, which I'm prettu sure is supposed to be Marius Titius. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 00:44
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Rome name stuff. See this is the kind of discussion I'm glad to have helped foster. And now I feel really bad for that other imaginary Marius in the army  .
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Mar 3, 2015 00:59
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Oh, and the "the brave man tastes death only once" part? He's quoting a Roman play. That's actually a clever bit of characterisation. Marius is clearly educated, but not too much. That's why he quotes a play instead of poetry, which was more highly regarded. A stuffy noble would've probably gone with something from the Iliad, but Marius has more common tastes. It tells us a lot about him. He's paraphrasing Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
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Mar 3, 2015 01:33
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squirrelnow posted:Count me in as another person with a degree in the Romans and no xbone following this thread. I will enjoy seeing how much more they mangle history! I'd actually point towards Venus, which was associated with Rome due to the whole Aeneid "Romans are the last Trojans" thing. Flowers, beauty, etc. Or the Goddess Roma, which was also a thing. Chips Challenged posted:Its not too much of a spoiler, and it actually gets explained a bit later in the comics, but its not Juno. I wanted to issue a correction on that, but figured it would leave people speculating a bit. It turns out she's a fictional goddess called "Summer." loving rolled my eyes when there was a perfectly good pantheon to pull from, yet Crytek chose to make one up. I figure the only goddess that would technically match that description of Summer would be Ceres, being the goddess of agriculture. After some googling though apparently there's a lesser known goddess of Summer known as Aestas? I can't seem to find much on her, granted I didn't go past the second page on google and I don't feel like digging through academic sources... Anyway, she's just generally known as the "unnamed goddess" or "Summer." Or a stupid rear end decision like this. Goddamnit Crytek. Calax posted:Both. I know they've done it on Roman statues and found the colors (as somebody posted) and probably got the idea for it from Greece. The entirety of Roman religious practices can be resumed as "Lawyer Rule at all times and Bribe the Gods when you can't". Also, the "Enemy Territory" also goes with the practice of War being declared by a priest of Mars or Jupiter throwing a spear unto "Enemy Territory". Of course, the obsessive application of the exact letter of religious law does help us with some details, like Augustus making a big deal of actually closing the gates of Janus more than once during his reign. Which meant that, for a time, Rome wasn't actually at war with someone.
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Mar 3, 2015 04:37
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Other non-historical things: the catapult used was pretty clearly a hinged-counterweight trebuchet. Counterweight trebuchets aren't recorded until the 12th century AD. Wikipedia tells me Romans mostly preferred ladders and battering rams, though they did build siege towers, ballistae, scorpios, and something called an onager, which is a rock throwing device which uses a twisted rope to fire.
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Mar 3, 2015 05:06
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I used to have a handout on roman names that also listed the longest name my professor had come across... which was something like 17 proper names. It should be noted that one of the reasons that the Emperors are known by nicknames is beacuse it was common tradition to take your name and give it to your first born. But there was no "Junior" added to it. Julius Ceaser (the Famous one)'s dad was also Julius Ceaser, as was his granddad. Girls got shafted too, with their names basically being "First" "Second" and "Third" based on how they came out. Also, I'm pretty sure that York was founded after Nero died... Edit: Found where I'd copied my professors hand out about names onto SA... quote:In the later empire they started mixing things up. Calax fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 06:00
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Calax posted:I used to have a handout on roman names that also listed the longest name my professor had come across... which was something like 17 proper names. Actually, the first born girls were always named the feminine version of their family's name. Cicero's daughter, for instance, was Tullia. The numeral names were both for males and females after more original names had run out. To take an example from the game, Septima must have come from the gens Septimus or been the seventh daughter of her parents. Also, Secondus is a known praenomen. You're also missing Decius and a few others.
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Mar 3, 2015 09:16
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Dilb posted:Wikipedia tells me Romans mostly preferred ladders and battering rams, though they did build siege towers, ballistae, scorpios, and something called an onager, which is a rock throwing device which uses a twisted rope to fire. Onagers were catapults. Definitely no counter-weight on them.
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Mar 3, 2015 10:59
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quote:One gem is Quintus Pomeius Senecio Roscius Murena Coelius Sextus Iulius Frontinus Silius Decianus Gaius Iulius Eurycles herculaneus Lucius Vibullius PiusAugustanus Alpinus Bellicius Sollers Iulius Acer Ducenius Proculus Rutilianus Rfinus Silius Valens Valerius Niger Claudius Fuscs Saxa Amyntianus Sosius Priscus United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru...
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Mar 3, 2015 12:21
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Wait, this has multiplayer? How the gently caress does that work, a competition of who does the QTEs faster?
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Mar 3, 2015 12:56
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anilEhilated posted:Wait, this has multiplayer? How the gently caress does that work, a competition of who does the QTEs faster? Yes. Its gladiatorial co-op. You and a friend get put in an arena and you're given simplistic missions. Your goal is basically to keep the crowd entertained. I'll do my best to show it off at the end. Actually, a portion of it is used in single player so I'll point it out once we get there.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:49
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Onagers were catapults. Definitely no counter-weight on them. Worst part? In my 495 class (The capstone for the history program at my school) One of the students was doing the Roman Army. The suggestions that the professor gave us for the intro to the 20 page term paper was "Throw in some flavor text for the intro to draw people into the dry stuff you'll be writing". The guy doing the Roman Army, I poo poo you not, started his rough draft with "The crash of Trebuchets..."
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Mar 5, 2015 07:58
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Bland though this level may be, it is pretty spot on for Dover tends to be like; grey sky, grey sea, grey ground, off-white cliffs...
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Mar 5, 2015 09:46
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Episode II - Collectibles Post (Chp. III) Sorry it took so long to get the collectibles post up. Its been a very busy week and I'm afraid my life is getting a bit busier as well. Not to worry though, I have the plans lined up for the next episode and we'll shoot for the end of next week. Anyway, this week we find out Marius' dad was a p-ok guy. Also apparently the barbarians trolled the Romans into building them trebuchets with engineering plans that historically could not have existed... Chronicles - Chapter III Scrolls - Chapter III Vistas - Chapter III Chips Challenged fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 05:05
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Chips Challenged posted:Its not too much of a spoiler, and it actually gets explained a bit later in the comics, but its not Juno. I wanted to issue a correction on that, but figured it would leave people speculating a bit. It turns out she's a fictional goddess called "Summer." loving rolled my eyes when there was a perfectly good pantheon to pull from, yet Crytek chose to make one up. I figure the only goddess that would technically match that description of Summer would be Ceres, being the goddess of agriculture. After some googling though apparently there's a lesser known goddess of Summer known as Aestas? I can't seem to find much on her, granted I didn't go past the second page on google and I don't feel like digging through academic sources... Anyway, she's just generally known as the "unnamed goddess" or "Summer." Wait, they spent a whole cutscene establishing Nemesis, Goddess of Revenge, and then don't use her as the magical guide for Marty's quest for revenge? Anyway, in a odd way, this game actually looks kinda fun. Like a budget Arkham game, but with stabbing instead of punching. And I kinda like how drab this latest level was compared to what came before it. Like he's left the lush and warm scenery of home and now he's in poo poo-town getting boulders launched at him. I mean, I dunno how well it works, but I get what they were going for.
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Mar 10, 2015 14:35
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We've got an update! Find Episode III in the main post. So just so there's no confusion, I brought in my friend Detective Grey because he's a loving amazing conversationalist and a great guy all around. We get into some great discussion here and this video basically shifts gears from the guiding I've been doing to just general discussion about the game. And just to clarify so you historians don't eat Detective Grey up, he was mistaken on the Saxon bit halfway through the video or so. We talked about it afterward, but I don't feel like cutting what genuinely felt like great conversation. ALSO at the end, we ended up having some fun discussion, but it drowned out the cutscene so I cut our audio about 1min before it triggers. I'll be uploading a supplemental video with the convo back in because I think it actually does some great foreshadowing into the coming sections of the game.
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Mar 15, 2015 15:51
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... Episode 4, Marius goes to 'nam! A game you could do after this would be Shadow of Mordor. Wait... they moved to relieve York... which is up north. And then "Whelp, we're in Stonehenge now!" And it ends with us walking into a Medieval fort while guys are being not-crucified and the characters act like torture and human trafficking weren't totally normal in Roman warfare. Also fake Roman Emperors son, and an Emperor who's 100 years to late. And are they suggesting that we're going north of the not-yet-built Hadrians Wall. THIS ISN'T GAME OF THRONES!
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Mar 15, 2015 19:48
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Fiction always acts like Crucifixion must've been a huge deal to the Romans. It really wasn't. It was the accepted execution method for enemies of the state. The Romans could get pretty goddamn mean when they wanted.
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Mar 15, 2015 20:38
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Night10194 posted:Fiction always acts like Crucifixion must've been a huge deal to the Romans. It really wasn't. It was the accepted execution method for enemies of the state. The Romans could get pretty goddamn mean when they wanted. My point wasn't that it was happening, but more that it was done WRONG. A crucifix (the roman one) looks like a capitol T not that spread eagle thing.
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Mar 15, 2015 20:54
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Oh, yeah. I more meant that in agreement with your 'It's ridiculous the characters are acting like enslavement and torture aren't part of Roman war' statement.
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Mar 15, 2015 20:54
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Did all warrior women dress like something out of Heavy Metal magazine?
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Mar 15, 2015 21:28
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thelaughingman posted:Did all warrior women dress like something out of Heavy Metal magazine? Dude that's Boudica's level 72 armor. Also the supplement is up. It involves Detective Grey's theory for where the game's plot is headed so for those who feel like listening to some speculation. (He's pretty on point btw.)
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Mar 15, 2015 21:41
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MQ8gIxBj4Y Tangentially related. British TV show built on Rome Total War... 4 random Joes try to beat a historical scenario while historians talk about what actually happened.
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Mar 15, 2015 21:54
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I'm just sad they don't have the Celt's spiked hair.
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Mar 15, 2015 23:36
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Only a few minutes into the video and I could already summarise it 
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Mar 16, 2015 00:58
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I don't even know why they decided to make Boudicca's father the driving force in this rebellion. Was the death of her husband and the annexation of her kingdom despite what the will said not dramatic enough for this game? She had to have her (named for this game) father lead the army before being killed off instead? Yes, yes, Crytek admitted to artistic history when making this game, but I don't even see why this would be particularly necessary. But to provide some context for who're going off just the video: Boudicca was the wife of Prasutagus, the king of the Iceni, a tribe that lived in roughly modern day Norfolk (top bit of England's bum). Now, the Iceni were a Roman client state, and a common practice, for maintaining stability and stuff (in theory), was for the kings of said client states to leave their realms to the Roman Empire. Except, Prasutagus didn't want that, so he tried to leave it as a joint realm of his daughters and the Emperor. The Romans didn't take kindly to this, forcefully annexing the Iceni whilst having Boudicca flogged and her daughters raped because, y'know, subjugation and domination was a thing in Roman culture and politics. Boudicca, in turn, said gently caress this (not in the same sense the Romans had) and rallied together several of the other tribes to go on a general rampage against Roman Britain whilst the local governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was busy dealing with enemies in Anglesey - which, for those who don't know, is the island off the coast of north west Wales. In other words, the opposite end of Great Britain, giving Boudicca and her allies a perfect opportunity to go nuts. As I mentioned previously, they attacked several of Rome's settlements in eastern England, said to be in no mood to take prisoners. With an army of around 100,000, there was little to stop them. Then Suetonius met them in battle.  The exact details are vague at best, but is generally believed to have happened on 'Watling Street', which rather than a street as we imagine it today, was one of large roman roads that connected the distant parts of the empire. How many were involved on both sides is vague, and Boudicca's 'army' may have involved a number of unarmed civilians, but Suetonius is believed to have had 10,000 versus a force somewhere in the hundreds of thousands (Dio claims 230,000). After all, Boudicca was hot off the heels of giving Rome the worst beating it had seen from any of its colonies in years, and so people were rallying to her. Whatever the numbers were, the Romans crushed Boudicca's army, owing to what's generally believed to be better armament, tactics, and location - a narrow gorge to funnel the enemy where the Romans could handle them. In any case, the rebellion did not last for much longer, and indeed, fuelled further occupation of the country by Rome, which led to, of course, Hadrian and his wall (which really should not exist even in Ryse's alternate timeline).
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Mar 16, 2015 01:13
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That's some weird boss design, you beat the boss which then goes "eh, you guys can clean this up" to a few generic enemies which drop in for the second half of the fight.
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Mar 16, 2015 18:06
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Asehujiko posted:That's some weird boss design, you beat the boss which then goes "eh, you guys can clean this up" to a few generic enemies which drop in for the second half of the fight. Just you wait. It's going to get to the point where you'll be questioning why Crytek even bothered with a health meter...
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Mar 16, 2015 19:11
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