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C&D's Bithynian Overhaul and Cappadocian Expansion

== Updated for Rise of the Republic patch ==

Warning: I haven't played R2 for years, can't check full functionality in campaign.
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If you’re like me, you think Thracians are the coolest guys ever.
If you’re like me, you think there’s never enough dakka.
If you’re like me, you think there’s never enough choppa.
If you’re like me, you think armour is for puss1es, but Nobles are the manliest.
If you’re like me, you watch in your mirror and you see a Thracian Noble nodding at you with approvation before wooshing away in a Superman pose.
If you’re like me, you wish you had one of those fancy cloaks.
If you’re like me, congratulations, you’re as crazy as a flying cow.

Now that I have your worried attention: this is a historical-ish overhaul of the Bithynian Kingdom, with a side of Cappadocia because a varied diet is that important.
Anyway, I was just kidding, Alexander’s Macedonians are way cooler.


Let’s start with the cappadocian part, which involves a simple addition of six new units and some vanilla ones to the roster.
New stuff being:
- Cappadocian Cataphracts (superior melee cav)
- Cappadocian Noble Horsemen (armoured mounted javelinmen)
- Cappadocian Skirmishers (sneaky javelinmen)
- Cappadocian Noble Guard (heavy axemen)
- Cappadocian Armoured Spearmen (derp)
- Cappadocian Spears (reliable early levies)
Vanilla stuff being:
- Eastern Cataphracts
- Axemen (the armenian ones, not the Kartli)
- Eastern Horse Archers
- possibly more in the future
These additions are perfectly historical being based on absolutely nothing. Serious.
Also compatible with the Augustus’ campaign.

Now that that’s over with, let’s get to the serious beef and the heavier work.


O Bithynia, wherefore art thou Bithynia. Until now, you have been told that Bithynia was a meaningless eastern kingdom, with a useless unique unit. Now, after careful examination of secret knowledge (meh, it’s all in the interwebz) and a corpus of funerary stelai, I’m pretty sure that’s bovine faeces: they would instead be a complex kingdom of greek towns ruled by a highly hellenized Thracian aristocracy. Basing on that material I am also assuming that the tactical role of the thracian manpower was mostly based on age and not on census.

Gamewise, they are now a thracian faction with hellenic culture and mixed buildings and roster. For example, your walled cities will be basically greek, your towns thracian since it seems that the ‘barbaric’ population mostly dwelled peripherally.
I have (hopefully) completely removed any of the previous eastern thingies and replaced them with thracian or greek stuff.


COMPATIBILITY:
I managed to do this without touching the startpos, so there’s no problem with other mods using their own.
Mods that add bithynian units to its military_grouping (exclusive_permissions are fine) won't work.
Now includes a compatibility table that will let Bithynia recruit auxiliaries if you are using Auxilia for Everyone or similar mods.

KNOWN ISSUES:
- Your first and worried general will be an eastern misplaced guy named Kleopatros. I recommend giving him to the sharks.
- Also, your first two buildings are eastern but they won’t need converting.
- AI behaviour with the new buildings will probably require testing.
- I need to fix those bloody one-breast tunics.

DISCLAIMER:
There could be inevitable similarities with threadoflength’s Bithynia, since I believe he used the exact same sources. However I have taken my own conclusions based on them, and differences with the other respected modder’s work. Which I intend to revive when I have time and if he doesn’t return to update his own mods.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
- A faction unlock is necessary for both campaigns and you will find both of them among the Eastern Empires, yes, even Bithynia.
- I recommend using either a faction-traitless one or the generic one by Azarvakhsh once you've started your bithynian campaign so that there aren't going to be too many custom faction traits on top of mine and my custom battles roster is used without the eastern clutter. Disabling the unlock altogether will mess up with the political thingy which I am not providing atm.
- For the sake of adaptation and authenticity (?) some greek buildings’ unlock might be in weird places, most notably the advanced military chain is in Tribal Council (as in, you develop your greek cities and also their native military).
- Pssst! You might want to check out Diadochs for one extra thracian unit and the other possibly nice stuff.
- 3d style version of unit icons provided in NordoPic.

THANKS TO:
- TBO Ermanarich for his support and yet again his idea of screenshots design.

Happy hunting! And don't forget to provide precious feedback!

Also, feel free to join our What-If historical discussion group if you like that sort of thing!

OFF-Steam downloads.[drive.google.com]

Whatever you do, remember to thumbs up or down or sideways or whatever fancies you! Everytime you don't give feedback, the gods ruin - RUIN, I mean! - a Thracian's cloak. Think of the Thracians.