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Magna Graecia: Titanomachia (A City State Quest)

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Cetashwayo said:
2. Trade is devalued because Eretria has an ever-growing amount of revenue from taxation
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Maybe trade value should depend on population too? Or would that be craftsman population generating new goods to trade as it grows?

Cetashwayo said:
5. Eretria can easily replace losses from war without any effort
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Wouldn't immigrants end up being more psilloi than anything since they're metics and can't be settled as hoplites? I expected that to be our cost for having so many metics compared to other cities.


Pivoting from city growth to colonial growth makes perfect sense though. As I said before, great bursts of colonial growth in later periods were based on the combination of attractive offer (in our case, citizenship in the colony) and great sources of immigrants (in our case, Hellenes without citizenship everywhere).

Of course, this means we'll have to work hard to keep ties with our colonies, but if we make sure we create enough the growth is spread out and none of them become big enough to straight up contest our leadership, we can probably keep them on board. We're already known for being fair to our subordinates, and I imagine the concessions we made to the Epulian league showed we're serious about it.
 
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Erandil said:
You mean provided the Samnites, who btw have moved towards our border, or the Luccani don't try to make us into Campania v2, Kerkyra, Korinth and other Greeks don't try to oppose us to strongly in the Adriatic, and we avoid getting into a bloody and exhausting conflict with the Dauni, Gauls/Gallic people, Illyrian tribes or our Greek neighbors and avoid any kind of conflict within our league/polis... And keep in mind even with our manpower a single large loss could set us back a decade or more and stop our expansion indefinitely.
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There's a reason I said by appearances. The Samnites are an issue in the years ahead- but we haven't heard that much since the Dauni drove them back way back when (which makes it sound promising when compared to us). The Luccani are definitely up in the air at this point but we're not in a bad way militarily- especially if we reform the Ekdromoi to be a thousand men.
Kerkyra is a gutted shadow of itself yoked to Athenai right now- I suspect by the time it's free we'll be hitting our stride in the Adriatic. And Korinth is locked into a cage match with an angry Athenai that's been dealing it body blows for a while now- and if Kerkyra miraculously does recover, they're going to turn their eyes on Korinth to get back at the wanton slaughter Korinth fostered on them. And Korinth probably knows that. Our Greek neighbors excepting Taras, have neither the will or the means to campaign against Eretria barring them uniting, and one of the greatest Italiote powers down there, the Thurii is an ally. Gauls are probably going to be raising a ruckus in the Po valley that we'll hear about long before we face them directly. Illyrian tribes just got hit hard and will have trouble interfering with our Adriatic ambitions considering we're planning on heavily expanding our Trireme fleet and marine complements when we can.

As for stasis and internal conflict- Eretria has been remarkably stable in that regard already and the demes don't seem like too much of a destabilizing influence in that regard. Yes our position isn't impossible to contest, but it's secure and defensible as things stand- and even the interior tribes are going to realize- when you take a swing at the biggest kid in his shitty inflatable pool right outside the actual pool, you best not miss.
Cetashwayo said:
Generally the way old-style colonies work is that those colonies are gathered up by groups of people within the old polis who then go off and found a colony. The new colonists don't have citizenship in their mother city though they may keep ties unless the colony was founded by exiles (and even then, Taras was founded presumably by Spartan exiles but there's no ill-will there). There's no central control involved. This is the formal process which emerges in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, and earlier it was even more ad hoc without organizing a bunch of people. That being said, colonies create commercial networks with their mother city, and so allowing Taras into the Adriatic through that backdoor is more than a little dangerous. Tarentines leaving to some of the colonies themselves is another story.
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Hmm, and I suppose making a special arrangement with Taras to tie us closer together- for instance I don't mind the Tarantines potentially getting trade ties into the Adriatic if said colonies are member of the Epulian League but I'm honestly trying to have my cake of binding Taras tightly to at the very least non-aggression against Eretria without letting them serve as a counter-weight to our dominance of the league.
 
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Nyvis said:
Maybe trade value should depend on population too? Or would that be craftsman population generating new goods to trade as it grows?
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I don't really want to complicate it.

Nyvis said:
Wouldn't immigrants end up being more psilloi than anything since they're metics and can't be settled as hoplites? I expected that to be our cost for having so many metics compared to other cities.
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Well, I can certainly reduce the number of hoplites, and I already do that, as the citizen ratio falls. But it's still just way too much, and because I don't track metics and citizens separately I'm not always having them grow by the appropriate rates. I'll fix that next turn.
 
Cetashwayo said:
Generally the way old-style colonies work is that those colonies are gathered up by groups of people within the old polis who then go off and found a colony. The new colonists don't have citizenship in their mother city though they may keep ties unless the colony was founded by exiles (and even then, Taras was founded presumably by Spartan exiles but there's no ill-will there). There's no central control involved. This is the formal process which emerges in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, and earlier it was even more ad hoc without organizing a bunch of people. That being said, colonies create commercial networks with their mother city, and so allowing Taras into the Adriatic through that backdoor is more than a little dangerous. Tarentines leaving to some of the colonies themselves is another story.



Word spreads fast. When people hear you can go become a citizen in an Epulian League colony in the Adriatic and get a parcel of land and political rights many will chomp at bit to grab the offer. Hellas has no shortage of disenfranchised, poor, or struggling urban and rural people, and the Greeks are among the first great mass migrators in European history, often moving in spectacular waves. Dionysius I and II managed to get 60,000 Greeks to come and repopulate Sicily, Timoleon did the same, and hundreds of thousands of Greeks emigrated to the east in the first century after Alexander.

However, that will take some time to filter out. Eretria's "agents" are literally people who go stand in a city square and say hey bud, tell your friends there's work in Eretria. Usually they can act on longstanding immigrant networks, and have a few favored haunts, like Akhaia and Krete, because people already know about Eretria there and are more interested.
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Well there is also the oracle of Delphi (at least I think it was that one) which seems to have played an important role in gathering and disseminating information regarding colonies and which was generally the place practically every leader of such an expedition went to before setting off. Or at least that seems to have been the case in early greek history if I remember my courses about that era correctly. So I guess what I am saying is that we should follow long standing greek tradition and gift some ostentatious statues to Delphi...
 
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Erandil said:
Well there is also the oracle of Delphi (at least I think it was that one) which seems to have played an important role in gathering and disseminating information regarding colonies and which was generally a place practically every leader of such an expedition went to. Or at least that seems to have been the case in early greek history if I remember my courses about that era correctly. SO I guess what I am saying is that we should follow long standing greek tradition and gift some ostentatious statues to Delphi...
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I think it was popular earlier when colonies were more risky and in far more unknown territory. Nowadays most of the Mediterranean has been "parceled up", so to speak, and the parts that haven't are too dangerous to colonize. Thucydides didn't mention Thurii sending a delegation to Delphi, but it's a fun flavor thing and I thank you for reminding me of it, as I don't mind using it every now and then.
 
Karugus said:
There's a reason I said by appearances. The Samnites are an issue in the years ahead- but we haven't heard that much since the Dauni drove them back way back when (which makes it sound promising when compared to us). The Luccani are definitely up in the air at this point but we're not in a bad way militarily- especially if we reform the Ekdromoi to be a thousand men.
Kerkyra is a gutted shadow of itself yoked to Athenai right now- I suspect by the time it's free we'll be hitting our stride in the Adriatic. And Korinth is locked into a cage match with an angry Athenai that's been dealing it body blows for a while now- and if Kerkyra miraculously does recover, they're going to turn their eyes on Korinth to get back at the wanton slaughter Korinth fostered on them. And Korinth probably knows that. Our Greek neighbors excepting Taras, have neither the will or the means to campaign against Eretria barring them uniting, and one of the greatest Italiote powers down there, the Thurii is an ally. Gauls are probably going to be raising a ruckus in the Po valley that we'll hear about long before we face them directly. Illyrian tribes just got hit hard and will have trouble interfering with our Adriatic ambitions considering we're planning on heavily expanding our Trireme fleet and marine complements when we can.

As for stasis and internal conflict- Eretria has been remarkably stable in that regard already and the demes don't seem like too much of a destabilizing influence in that regard.
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Well at least according to the maps the Samnites have muscled into Luccani territory and are now bordering the Peuketti directly so I am expecting to see some raiding and Co to flare up on that front relatively soon. And it is less a single threat that has me worried and more several of them happening at the same time since there is no better time to strike at us then we are distracted with another issue though I admit that this might be less likely here in the quest than in RL due to balance/fairness reasons.
 
Nyvis said:
Wouldn't immigrants end up being more psilloi than anything since they're metics and can't be settled as hoplites? I expected that to be our cost for having so many metics compared to other cities.
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Yes up to a point, but on the other hand, if hoplites die, their land and property is fairly likely to be freed up in the process. Someone will be able to afford to be a hoplite as a consequence, though it might take a few years for them to settle in and buy a panoply.
 
Erandil said:
Well at least according to the maps the Samnites have muscled into Luccani territory and are now bordering the Peuketti directly so I am expecting to see some raiding and Co to flare up on that front relatively soon. And it is less a single threat that has me worried and more several of them happening at the same time since there is no better time to strike at us then we are distracted with another issue though I admit that this might be less likely here in the quest than in RL due to balance/fairness reasons.
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That was a historical change, not an active change. The Samnites had always held that area, I just fixed the map.
 
[X] [Colony] Pharos. The excellent natural harbor at Pharos would make it a fine place for a central Adriatic port, even if it has a larger indigenous population. [-40 talents of grain and construction costs, 600 colonists found Pharos, -100 pop from Eretria, 400 colonists found Issa, -50 pop from Eretria].
[X] [Lykai] Settle them in the new Illyrian colonies [+600 settlers in primary Illyrian colony, +200 in second Illyrian colony].
[X] [Kymai] We cannot risk such an expedition [-10 talents per turn until city falls or the siege is relieved by another power, Eretria will provide grain shipments to the city and ferry refugees wherever they wish. Chance of picking up some of Kymai's citizens at random].
Adhoc vote count started by ShyGuy on Jun 19, 2019 at 6:32 PM, finished with 702 posts and 81 votes.
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racnor said:
We saw in the first immigration vote that calling for craftsmen does indeed result in more trade routes. So once again the harbour is the bottleneck.
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Oh, yeah, the harbour.

Euonomos, son of Philonikos, rower from a family of dubious slave descent made citizens with the founding:
Fellow citizens, the harbour of fifty masts may have been the site of one of our most impressive victories, but today, it is choking us! Soon enough, our ships will be too numerous and we will have to turn away merchants seeking trade with us. This cannot last! The sea trade is our lifeblood and without it, our friends would soon forget us. With the last campaign we have brought into being new colonies we will need to supply and maintain links with. Do not let our hard work go unsupported. We should invest in opening up a newer and bigger harbour so that Eretrian ships can blot out the seas and build a bridge to all our allies! This way, we can also separate our professional fleet and our merchant ships to make sure our triremes are never impaired by slower trading and fishing boats if they need to make a quick sortie to protect the city. We will honor Poseidon with our new festival and he will surely bless this undertaking!
 
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