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Magna Graecia: Titanomachia (A City State Quest)

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Admiral Skippy said:
So I could be wrong here, but actually I believe we are at 9/10 currently, if you look at the "Trade" tab of the cool little widget that @Cetashwayo made to track everything. This seems consistent given that we began the game with five trade routes and then chose the Demos Drakonia, which added four more maritime trade routes, leading to a total of nine.

As far as overland trade routes go, I also heavily suspect they don't count against the cap, given that the capacity of the city itself is not really a sensible limitation there, more the difficulties of trading overland or with the barbarian interior. Trade route capacity, I suspect, is more a measure of our logistical capacity and warehousing for maritime trade, which is how a majority of long-distance trade was conducted in the period, especially for the Greeks.
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Cetashwayo said:
Edited the stats to clarify. Should now say "9/10 trade routes" for Maritime Trade Capacity. You don't have limits on overland trade capacity beyond the fundamental fact that overland trade is much more expensive than maritime trade and the ancient Greeks especially used maritime trade far more.
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...Then I am confuzzled
Cetashwayo said:
Current Goals at Home​
  • Great Work: The city is running up against the limits of what the small Harbor of the Fifty Masts is able to handle in terms of trade volume, but Byssos Harbor is not sheltered enough to provide protection for as many ships as it could. Extend Byssos Harbour to provide a grand new commercial port for ships, more capacity for marinas and warehouses along the shore, and making the harbor more defensible from a sea attack. [-550 talent cost over 5 years, when finished, +2 Trade Routes, +10 trade route capacity]​
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I thought this extended our cap to 10. Is it actually extending our cap by 10???
 
So I'm kind of curious at how Eretria is broadly seen in the rest of the Hellenic world now, decades after its victory leading the coalition that finally defeated Syracusan efforts at hegemony that started back with Gelo. I had helped push the war at least in part hoping that a victory would gain Eretria immense renown in Italia, Sicily, and even back in Hellas. Well and had also hoped to create something of a broader based tie between Eretria and the other Greek cities in Italy and Sicily, such as games and religious rites to celebrate the victory and the freedom of the polises as well as reconciliation between Ionian and Dorian colonists.

It sounds like it passed as more of a one-off than hoped, but are there any of those sorts of cultural resonances remaining? Did the Eretrians redeem the honor of their arms once and for all from fleeing Persia? And how much did forcing Syracuse to allow its kidnapped Ionian population to return to their cities weaken Syracuse and strengthen its rivals?
 
Definitely if we want Athens to win (or at least Sparta not to win) we need to find some way to interfere with Persian payments to the Spartans.

Stir up rebellion in Egypt, perhaps? It's wealthy and populous enough that a major revolt would keep the Persians nicely distracted even if they eventually crush it.

Because the ultimate result of the Peloponnesian and Corinthian Wars IRL seems to have been "Persia uses its vastly larger economy to fund various Greek states and keep the whole region a shattered, impotently feuding mess right up until the Macedonians conquer everyone."
 
The speech of Antipatros, son of Lysandros, on the election of the Xenoparakletor in 345 OL.

Friends, citizens. It is well known that for all the success of great Eretriain, in our early years we erred. A costal Polis that turned from the sea, to our regret when we were forced to break from Taras before the alliance had run its course or been used for the ends we hoped.

A mistake made, and a mistake now long corrected.

For more than 30 years we have looked to the Adriatic and waged war upon those who would block our merchants and our rightful trading dominance in northern Italy. The Illyrians, Etruscans and pirates alike have all suffered most grievously, and justly, at the hands of our brave navy.

And yet still I hear some among us say more must be done, that our focus cannot shift or falter! Our gaze must remain locked upon the ocean and nowhere else!

But the pirates, you say! Indeed, the pirates... Will 4 more years be enough to remove them? 8 perhaps? Or are another 30 needed?

No, my friends. No. Even 30 will not be enough for I say instead to you all that so long as there is a sea to sail upon, there shall be pirates. Three decades now have shown us that it is a scourge we shall never be fully free of. Though we would all wish our merchants to sail unmolested forevermore, we must acknowledge that in our near single-minded focus we have ignored the affairs of the land for too long.

The Xenoparakletor must go south my friends, he must. For we know little of the state of the Messapii and their confederation, and still they and Taras agitate upon our southern border. We must make a common cause with one to leash the other, and Taras would hear nothing from us even had war not just begun between Athenai and Sparta.

And perhaps, should the Gods be with us, an opportunity may present itself to extend our rightful dominion within the peninsula. The Messapii are Barbaroi it is true, but even they can learn.

And to the north things are scarcely better! Though the Dauni cannot be called a threat to blessed Eretria itself, they remain an everpresent annoyance, a constant leash on our own ambition. What do we know of their movements? Their plots? For surely they plot as they ever have. Are we to once again only know of it when the chance to act has long since passed? For how long will we continue to tolerate the presence of this Barbaroi Kingdom on our border? We must set our spies amongst them and discover all their secrets, their weaknesses. Only then can their wretched confederation be shattered and their cities be shown their proper place.

War has come to Hellas, and is always close in Sicily, and to ensure a favourable outcome we shall surely have to act. I wonder how we are to confidently march to distant lands for the glory of great Eretria without first securing Eretria itself...

The answer is clear to me. We cannot.

And so we must elect good Mnemnon Keylonos as Xenoparakletor.

And when the land our foundations are set upon is secure we can turn once more to the Adriatic, or indeed, wherever else we wish.
 
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Sivantic said:
I thought this extended our cap to 10. Is it actually extending our cap by 10???
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Yes, 10 extra Maritime trade routes. Byssos has the potential to be a huge harbor.

Cavalier said:
So I'm kind of curious at how Eretria is broadly seen in the rest of the Hellenic world now, decades after its victory leading the coalition that finally defeated Syracusan efforts at hegemony that started back with Gelo. I had helped push the war at least in part hoping that a victory would gain Eretria immense renown in Italia, Sicily, and even back in Hellas. Well and had also hoped to create something of a broader based tie between Eretria and the other Greek cities in Italy and Sicily, such as games and religious rites to celebrate the victory and the freedom of the polises as well as reconciliation between Ionian and Dorian colonists.

It sounds like it passed as more of a one-off than hoped, but are there any of those sorts of cultural resonances remaining? Did the Eretrians redeem the honor of their arms once and for all from fleeing Persia? And how much did forcing Syracuse to allow its kidnapped Ionian population to return to their cities weaken Syracuse and strengthen its rivals?
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I wouldn't trust Erasmos' account, he's kind of an asshole. Think instead to the fact that he was able to persuade, through his account, to convince Perikles to adopt portions of the Eretrian style of cavalry. If the polis was not respected or cared for then Perikles would not have formed these cavalrymen in the first place, and named them after Eretria.

Syrakousai is drastically weaker than in the historical timeline. It relies on its southern allies, Gela and Akragas, to gain parity with the entirety of northern Sicily (ie Rhegion, the Sikeliotes, and Himera combined). The Ionian/Dorian split matters less now than historic ties which sometimes coincidentally align with Ionians and Dorians. The memory of Eretrian embarassment is effectively gone; most people think of Eretria as a prominent Italian power. They also know it to be peculiar and odd, but that doesn't mean they don't respect it.

The Sandman said:
Definitely if we want Athens to win (or at least Sparta not to win) we need to find some way to interfere with Persian payments to the Spartans.

Stir up rebellion in Egypt, perhaps? It's wealthy and populous enough that a major revolt would keep the Persians nicely distracted even if they eventually crush it.

Because the ultimate result of the Peloponnesian and Corinthian Wars IRL seems to have been "Persia uses its vastly larger economy to fund various Greek states and keep the whole region a shattered, impotently feuding mess right up until the Macedonians conquer everyone."
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Heh.
 
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The Sandman said:
Definitely if we want Athens to win (or at least Sparta not to win) we need to find some way to interfere with Persian payments to the Spartans.

Stir up rebellion in Egypt, perhaps? It's wealthy and populous enough that a major revolt would keep the Persians nicely distracted even if they eventually crush it.

Because the ultimate result of the Peloponnesian and Corinthian Wars IRL seems to have been "Persia uses its vastly larger economy to fund various Greek states and keep the whole region a shattered, impotently feuding mess right up until the Macedonians conquer everyone."
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This is something I've been mulling over a lot, actually. How do we want the war to end? The whole thing basically destroyed the age of Greek preeminence, with the Persians effectively securing their border and getting revenge until the Macedonians rolled in and wrecked everyone. I'm ... fairly certain that mainland Greece being sundered won't adversely effect our territories too badly - in fact it might very well serve as a opportunity to shift the cultural and economic centre of the hellenic world over to Magna Grecia - but having Sparta come out victorious in effective hegemony of Greece isn't something we want either, as we're kind of seen as in Athen's sphere of influence, if not closely. On the other hand, a victorious Athenian Empire will not be a neighbor content to let us dominate our region. So ... what do we actually want to happen?
 
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[x] Proboulos: Kyros Gennadios (Demos Antipatria)
[x] Xenoparakletor: Mnemnon Keylonos (Demos Exoria)
 
LonelyWolf999 said:
This is something I've been mulling over a lot, actually. How do we want the war to end? The whole thing basically destroyed the age of Greek preeminence, with the Persians effectively securing their border and getting revenge until the Macedonians rolled in and wrecked everyone. I'm ... fairly certain that mainland Greece being sundered won't adversely effect our territories too badly - in fact it might very well serve as a opportunity to shifty the cultural and economic centre of the hellenic world over to Magna Grecia - but having Sparta come out victorious in effective hegemony of Greece isn't something we want either, as we're kind of seen as in Athen's sphere of influence, if not closely. On the other hand, a victorious Athenian Empire will not be a neighbor content to let us dominate our region. So ... what do we actually want to happen?
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Ideally, some sort of peace of exhaustion that leaves Athens nominally victorious but not by a wide enough margin to dominate the rest of Greece.

It might be worth trying to establish some sort of super-league (headquartered at Olympia to associate it with the other pan-Hellenic institution, perhaps?) expressly to defend Greeks against outside powers and arbitrate disputes between cities.

Long run, of course, there's either going to be enough of a shift in Greek culture to allow for large-scale state formation or the Greek cities will be conquered piecemeal as per OTL. Hopefully we can find some way to move towards the former so that we aren't left shipping all our wealth and culture off to some swamp hicks.
 
[X] Proboulos: Kyros Gennadios (Demos Antipatria)
[X] Xenoparakletor: Mnemnon Keylonos (Demos Exoria)
 
@Cetashwayo - One of the things which grieved me so deeply about the 'death' of the second iteration of this quest was the point in which it left off on; I was incredibly curious about how we'd handle the aftermath of the victorious war against Syracuse. So ... what happened? A big part of the reason we embarked on it despite Sicily hardly being an immediate concern was to build prestige and establish ourself as one of, if not the major player in Magna Grecia. Was that successful? Have we established a 'sphere of influence' outside of our immediate league and tributaries? Besides the allies we chose in the beginning, I mean. It sounds like the bad blood with Metapontion due to their general impotence during the conflict festered enough to prevent closer ties from being formed, at the very least. Taras presumably forms the core of a hypothetical anti-us coalition, and I imagine the two boot cities we crushed hold grudges, although the loyal Syracuse ally was deliberately shafted in the deal if I recall correctly. It sounds like the Mesapii act as essentially a buffer state and thus has a sorta-cordial relationship with EE, despite us apparently poaching one of their cities. Meanwhile the Dauni look to be the serious immediate threat, although one that was implied to have major cracks the last time we checked.

Basically, I'm asking for some more clarification as to how we're viewed in the terms of our region, as you've established how the major powers see us.
 
LonelyWolf999 said:
@Cetashwayo - One of the things which grieved me so deeply about the 'death' of the second iteration of this quest was the point in which it left off on; I was incredibly curious about how we'd handle the aftermath of the victorious war against Syracuse. So ... what happened? A big part of the reason we embarked on it despite Sicily hardly being an immediate concern was to build prestige and establish ourself as one of, if not the major player in Magna Grecia. Was that successful? Have we established a 'sphere of influence' outside of our immediate league and tributaries? Besides the allies we chose in the beginning, I mean. It sounds like the bad blood with Metapontion due to their general impotence during the conflict festered enough to prevent closer ties from being formed, at the very least. Taras presumably forms the core of a hypothetical anti-us coalition, and I imagine the two boot cities we crushed hold grudges, although the loyal Syracuse ally was deliberately shafted in the deal if I recall correctly. It sounds like the Mesapii act as essentially a buffer state and thus has a sorta-cordial relationship with EE, despite us apparently poaching one of their cities. Meanwhile the Dauni look to be the serious immediate threat, although one that was implied to have major cracks the last time we checked.

Basically, I'm asking for some more clarification as to how we're viewed in the terms of our region, as you've established how the major powers see us.
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Well, if you had chosen to pursue the Antipatrid route you would have been able to capitalize on that more. The Antipatrid route was explicit in pursuing more ties and respect in the region. It's a little harder to justify the full extent of those ties being realized with the Drakonid route; the issue is that victories and the capitalization on victories are different. Eretria eventually chose to maintain a distance from the region and focus on expanding Illyrian trading holdings and its own revenue, but in a sense that actually helped; the wounds of the fight with Krotone and Lokri have healed. Lokri is still an ally of Syrakousai so will remain an enemy, but Krotone is not, and Eretrian support given to the Sikeliote League and Thurii to oppose Syrakousai is valued. The Dauni have stabilized (at least externally) but who knows what's going on there given the limited relations between them and Eretria. Metapontion did not maintain a stable alliance but remains cordial.

The way the options were crafted were to allow players to choose between a number of different possibilities that were becoming clear when the game ended. One was to expand their sphere of influence in Iapygia and end the Dauni as a threat, another was to get very involved in Italian affairs, and the third was to pursue a trading and Adriatic-oriented route. Players chose the Adriatic route, and so I can't justifiably give you the full extent of the reputation you have might have garnered; a reputation that has to be maintained. Sybaris was once one of the greatest cities in the Greek World, but then it was sacked and people forgot about it real quick. Argos was once rival against Sparta in the Peloponnese but then the world changed and Argos became a power wallowing in its former glory and Archaic success.

In effect, Krotone is cold but not hostile, Lokri is hostile, Taras is cold, Syrakousai is hostile, the Syrakousai aligned cities of Sicily are cold, and the Sikeliote-aligned cities of Sicily and Rhegion are cordial. Greek politics are always famously shifting, and so maintaining influence and prestige is very difficult without continuous effort. Look at how quickly Sparta fell to irrelevance from the pinnacle of power in the 4th century BCE.
 
The upside to reputation being so ephemeral, of course, is that it can be restored relatively straightforwardly if we can get some military and diplomatic successes under our belt.
 
@Cetashwayo So during the last iteration of this quest, Taras went to war with the Messapii and won a number of victories before the quest ended. Obviously the Messapii didn't get wiped out but what happened after Victory's Children ended?
 
Alias said:
@Cetashwayo So during the last iteration of this quest, Taras went to war with the Messapii and won a number of victories before the quest ended. Obviously the Messapii didn't get wiped out but what happened after Victory's Children ended?
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In two wars the Taras decisively broke the Messapii and seized land in the southeast, as you might notice. They haven't taken their cities but their cities are now fortified citadels surrounded by a denuded countryside barely recovered from the beating Taras gave them. Which is far more than Taras was able to do historically.
 
Cetashwayo said:
Greek politics are always famously shifting, and so maintaining influence and prestige is very difficult without continuous effort. Look at how quickly Sparta fell to irrelevance from the pinnacle of power in the 4th century BCE.
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Price of such a city-state centered society, I suppose. Having power so centralized to such a relatively fragile institution means that pretty much everything is ephemeral to some extent. Places are respected when they're glorious, forgotten when they aren't, and ultimately outcompeted and absorbed by nation-states.
Cetashwayo said:
In two wars the Taras decisively broke the Messapii and seized land in the southeast, as you might notice. They haven't taken their cities but their cities are now fortified citadels surrounded by a denuded countryside barely recovered from the beating Taras gave them. Which is far more than Taras was able to do historically.
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That certainly explains why they're apparently a concentrated push from making like the Peuketii and hitching their cart to ours, or at least several of their cities are willing to do so. Why has Taras been more succesful than in OTL? I assume it has to do with us weakening the locals?
 
LonelyWolf999 said:
That certainly explains why they're apparently a concentrated push from making like the Peuketii and hitching their cart to ours, or at least several of their cities are willing to do so. Why has Taras been more succesful than in OTL? I assume it has to do with us weakening the locals?
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You weakened the locals a lot and encouraged a new wave of Greek immigration west. Not all the Metics went to you, after all.

LonelyWolf999 said:
Price of such a city-state centered society, I suppose. Having power so centralized to such a relatively fragile institution means that pretty much everything is ephemeral to some extent. Places are respected when they're glorious, forgotten when they aren't, and ultimately outcompeted and absorbed by nation-states.
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Indeed.
 
Carthage seems like it could be a counterweight to the Persians. I don't think they share a border on the African coast but there is probably some amount of tension between the two. Of course, at that point your fucking with two superpowers so its high risk.

If the war spreads into Italia, we might really have Athens over a barrel. They're already scrabbling to get something from us, sending a diplomatic mission and honoring the city by naming a cavalry contigent after it. It'll be a balancing act between absconding with as much power from the deal as possible and leaving them powerful enough to secure our interests in Greece.
 
Cetashwayo said:
You weakened the locals a lot and encouraged a new wave of Greek immigration west. Not all the Metics went to you, after all.
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Huh, that makes sense. I assume we've been backing the Messapii with subsidies, and I'm not sure if it's for the better or worse that it didn't work out in the end. Definitely want to swoop in diplo-annex our rightful clay before Taras can eat the rest of it, though.

Speaking of cordial barbarians, how have the Peuketii been doing? King Harpos quickly grew into one of my favorite characters with how he was able to make the most out of an utterly shit hand. Did he actually invest all the talents he got from the war into building up his kingdom? How does it look today? What's the relationship between them and EE?
 
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