Goblin Squad Member
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Oh, I agree.. but neither should it be so focused on combat and adventuring that your character is limited to only doing those tasks. When you think about it, Crafting itself is sort of a niche part of games. Yeah, you can get better equipment for adventuring, but I know of a lot of people who do it because they find it fun to do.
Certainly the MAIN things should be included. The things that everyone or a vast majority is going to want. But if that is all you include then the game becomes stale. To me, Star Wars Old Republic is like this. Spectacular game, beautifull graphics, wonderfull stories. It includes the stuff that everyone wants, but leaves out stuff that fewer people want. After you run through all the character types twice, most people are pretty much done with the game. All that is left is doing the same thing over and over.
I think that, now that sandboxed games are coming out, that they need to consider what can be done on the land you own besides building a house. Almost no one wants a horse they can't ride. Almost no one wants a sword they can't swing. I believe that almost no one wants a house they can't live in.. land they can't use.
The next step is to consider, what things can be implemented in the game that can be done on the land. That is something I haven't seen much discussion on. Yes, you have a pretty plot of land. Can you grow things on it? Can you have a bar and have friends come over to your tavern and drink and sing dirty songs? Do people hang out near the town well? Can I buy beer in bulk from a town, have it hauled overland to my tavern in the town I've built, and then sell it to the people who visit my tavern for roleplaying?
Not everything can be implemented, not everything SHOULD be implemented. But something needs to be done to address what will be done on your land beyond protecting it and building on it? What do you do while waiting for that next bandit attack? Do you stand in front of your...
Yes, I can agree with your notion that nobody wants to fight for an empty hull. In another post of mine I said that attachment to your settlement is very important: if you do not care about your settlement much then the Game of Thrones might fall flat. One of the important ways to accomplish this is off course, that a thriving settlement will actually yield the individual player bonusses (training, feats and such). Also, likeminded people in your settlement, that you get to know, so a sense of familiarity.
A sense of pride and (shared) ownership of your settlement. That is what I hope for.
This could be strengthened by the things you mention: however you must be wary of the pittraps. That these features are too individually focussed and maybe even cause *too great* a loss for the individual player. There are plans for playerhousing in the future, but these most likely will be instanced (Stephen Cheney quote). If there are houses, then most likely there will house-items and decorating. Should people lose all this when a settlement gets razed down to the ground? Or will the outcry be too great then?
Will the people that lose a house full of items cause such a stink on the forums that it will get harder to raze down a settlement? It is a tricky path to go.
So not only are there cost/benefit reasons but also reasons for keeping the game-focus(game of thrones, changing land-ownership, meaningful player interaction).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Indeed, though PvP may not be the "most important part" of PfO for a certain individual, it will be a part of the game that nobody can ignore. Every crafter or gatherer will have to be prepared for the day he has to fight, run, or surrender, whether that's on a personal, company, or settlement scale.
If they treat horse breeding just like another craft I don't see why it wouldn't be universally used.
Aside from different breeds and asthetics, being able to create mounts with +10% HP or +50% Endurance, etc... would appeal to everyone.
This thread has me thinking I should eventually create a Rogue horse thief who operates the local BBQ/Glue Factory PoI.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No offense, but that argument that only 1% of the player base would choose to be horse breeders, and therefore it has no development value (according to Ryan's parameters)is specious.
Although it may be true only 1% will run a horse ranch (breeder), nearly 100% of the player base will eventually have a horse (if that is the only mounts available).
The counter argument to this is, why have the crafting of crossbows? Sure perhaps 20% of weaponsmiths can craft crossbows, but only 1% of the player base actually use them.
The Horse is more widely used than the crossbow, whether you accept my made up numbers or not.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with Beleriand and Bluddwolf, I could see horsebreeding as a simple craft, just as the others, with orders and queues. This craft could be done at a Stable which is one of the buildings that a Settlement can be upgraded with.
I guess I was thrown off by the idea that individual players could have stables where there would be horses standing around, (some of them starspangled), and some intricate, standalone breeding system that would require some unique approach.
Once Mounts are introduced to the game, and become a disposable commodity, they could easily be incorporated into a craft.
Not sure why I did not immediately could see it as another crafting skill, maybe I misinterpreted Boonjums intention?
Boonjum, if you meant Horsebreeding to be a craft like Weaponsmithing, then we agree after all. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was thinking of horse breeding like a very low speed crafting that goes on while your not actually doing something. It's more like resource management. You buy/get your breeding pair/set of horses. Then you determine what breeds with what. You have "recipies" of blood lines to create particular colors and traits. At the end of the process, which in my mind should certainly take longer than a day, the horses have baby horses with the trait's you want. Then you use your horse training skill to train the horse OR you can sell the foal to someone who will train it with the specific skills they want.
It's sort of like the NPC Away crafting I've seen in some games. You give your npc something to do.. they go off.. and when it's done they tell you they finished it and give you the finished good. But replace NPC's with horses. :D
Also, the preparation for breeding horses would have to be done. You would have to build a barn, put up fences, set aside pasture land.
Boojum the brown bunny
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CEO, Goblinworks
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A quick bit of expectation setting:
There will not be mounts in Early Enrollment and its unclear at what point after Open Enrollment begins that they will enter the game. That will likely be subjected to Crowdforging in the Open Enrollment period.
Not something that we are happy about but it's a hard constraint on resources to do mounts at this time and we can't prioritize that feature high enough with our existing resources to work on it in the short run.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with Beleriand and Bluddwolf, I could see horsebreeding as a simple craft, just as the others, with orders and queues. This craft could be done at a Stable which is one of the buildings that a Settlement can be upgraded with.
I was thinking of breeding as replacing the refining stage of crafting. Instead of melting down a chunk of ore, a breeder mixes two raw materials bow chicka wow wow. Quality is still measured 1-300 which is genetic quality in the family lines. The crafting stage is training that foal to actually add major and minor keywords onto it for players' horse skills to utilize up to its maximum potential from quality level.
I see it happening at a POI. That's based on the recent blog that various POIs will be like such and such and also have some related character training. Well, why not a stable in the countryside where players can craft horses and also get husbandry (and eventually pet) training?
Plus it won't make the town so smelly. Also, bonus points to GW if the stables steadily bank fertilizer that can be sold to farmers.
point of order gentleman
If mounts are resource generated by a poi or outpost then they have to have the same qualities as all other poi generated resources that is to say they have to have a permanent prescence in game and be stealable and destructible.
I expect most will object to their mount being either.
The whole argument therefore revolves around 3 questions
1) Is goblinworks capable and willing to provide permanent mounts
2) Will people bother breeding mounts or if they do will people find themselves limited by available mounts by settlement membeship
3) Will people accept mount death and mount theft or will they whinge
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Goblin Squad Member
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It would be in the spirit of the tabletop version of Pathfinder if mounts were relatively cheap and easily replaceable (and killable). After level 2 or so a tabletop character can easily afford to replace their mount. The type of horse affects the price, but they range from 75-300 gp. By 3rd level a tabletop PC has thousands of gold and it just blows up from there.
I hope we eventually see some form of Ride skill (also in the spirit of the tabletop game) to reflect your ability to ride the mount as opposed to just some binary indicator of whether you can use a certain mount or not.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really hope so...since I'm wanting to play a Knightly fellow (not a Paladin) like a Cavalier or a Lancer. Medium to Heavey cavalry would be alot of fun. Joust's anyone?Light cavalry with a short bow wins EVERYTHING.Against and equal number of byzantine cataphracts?
A threat from cataphracts waddling after light cavalry? Assuming the armor is good enough to resist arrows (big assumption) someone's going to get tired first and withdraw; probably won't be the guys not hauling around an extra 350 pounds of iron.
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Goblin Squad Member
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point of order gentleman
If mounts are resource generated by a poi or outpost then they have to have the same qualities as all other poi generated resources that is to say they have to have a permanent prescence in game and be stealable and destructible.
I expect most will object to their mount being either.
The whole argument therefore revolves around 3 questions
1) Is goblinworks capable and willing to provide permanent mounts
2) Will people bother breeding mounts or if they do will people find themselves limited by available mounts by settlement membeship
3) Will people accept mount death and mount theft or will they whinge
Welcome to the forums Mrs. Steelwing. I see I won't have to guess at which person is Steel's SO ;).
I would expect most items in general to not have a permanent presence in game; when a player logs out, I'd expect the stuff he had on his person to log out with him and be safe (provided he logged out in an area safe enough, etc). So too for mounts, I don't think having them persist on logout is necessary as that would be an extra restriction placed on them separate from other items.
I hope that mounts essentially become consumables just like the other items we'll have; every so often you have to replace your armor set, and every so often you have to replace your mount. Yes, some people will whine about that, but I don't necessarily see that as indicating that mounts should be done different.
For others, though I would agree to initially having mounts pumped out of a crafting queue just like wooden planks or iron weapons, I also would not object to some crafts getting more unique nuances to them. In the case of animal husbandry, perhaps in order to get specific keywords on your mount you have to breed them into it, rather than just selecting which ones you want while crafting. Not a needed system, but just something a little more interesting.
Welcome to the forums Mrs. Steelwing. I see I won't have to guess at which person is Steel's SO ;).
I would expect most items in general to not have a permanent presence in game; when a player logs out, I'd expect the stuff he had on his person to log out with him and be safe (provided he logged out in an area safe enough, etc). So too for mounts, I don't think having them persist on logout is necessary as that would be an extra restriction placed on them separate from other items.
I hope that mounts essentially become consumables just like the other items we'll have; every so often you have to replace your armor set, and every so often you have to replace your mount. Yes, some people will whine about that, but I don't necessarily see that as indicating that mounts should be done different.
For others, though I would agree to initially having mounts pumped out of a crafting queue just like wooden planks or iron weapons, I also would not object to some crafts getting more unique nuances to them. In the case of animal husbandry, perhaps in order to get specific keywords on your mount you have to breed them into it, rather than just selecting which ones you want while crafting. Not a needed system, but just something a little more interesting.
1) I am not steelwings significant other I am a person in my own right wih my own personality and we agree where we agree and disagree where we disagree
2) Yes I am not suggesting mounts stay around when you log out. I suggested mounts should be as permanent as any other resource if they come from the same source
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Goblin Squad Member
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Welcome to the forums Mrs. Steelwing. I see I won't have to guess at which person is Steel's SO ;).
I would expect most items in general to not have a permanent presence in game; when a player logs out, I'd expect the stuff he had on his person to log out with him and be safe (provided he logged out in an area safe enough, etc). So too for mounts, I don't think having them persist on logout is necessary as that would be an extra restriction placed on them separate from other items.
I hope that mounts essentially become consumables just like the other items we'll have; every so often you have to replace your armor set, and every so often you have to replace your mount. Yes, some people will whine about that, but I don't necessarily see that as indicating that mounts should be done different.
For others, though I would agree to initially having mounts pumped out of a crafting queue just like wooden planks or iron weapons, I also would not object to some crafts getting more unique nuances to them. In the case of animal husbandry, perhaps in order to get specific keywords on your mount you have to breed them into it, rather than just selecting which ones you want while crafting. Not a needed system, but just something a little more interesting.
1) I am not steelwings significant other I am a person in my own right wih my own personality and we agree where we agree and disagree where we disagree
2) Yes I am not suggesting mounts stay around when you log out. I suggested mounts should be as permanent as any other resource if they come from the same source
I'm confused, are you saying your not his out of game partner/wife/girlfriend or are you objecting to being simply thought of as Steelwing's wife instead of your own entity.
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I'm confused, are you saying your not his out of game partner/wife/girlfriend or are you objecting to being simply thought of as Steelwing's wife instead of your own entity.
Welcome to the forums Mrs. Steelwing. I see I won't have to guess at which person is Steel's SO ;).
I would expect most items in general to not have a permanent presence in game; when a player logs out, I'd expect the stuff he had on his person to log out with him and be safe (provided he logged out in an area safe enough, etc). So too for mounts, I don't think having them persist on logout is necessary as that would be an extra restriction placed on them separate from other items.
I hope that mounts essentially become consumables just like the other items we'll have; every so often you have to replace your armor set, and every so often you have to replace your mount. Yes, some people will whine about that, but I don't necessarily see that as indicating that mounts should be done different.
For others, though I would agree to initially having mounts pumped out of a crafting queue just like wooden planks or iron weapons, I also would not object to some crafts getting more unique nuances to them. In the case of animal husbandry, perhaps in order to get specific keywords on your mount you have to breed them into it, rather than just selecting which ones you want while crafting. Not a needed system, but just something a little more interesting.
1) I am not steelwings significant other I am a person in my own right wih my own personality and we agree where we agree and disagree where we disagree
2) Yes I am not suggesting mounts stay around when you log out. I suggested mounts should be as permanent as any other resource if they come from the same source
I am married to Steelwing. We have two daughters. I care for him deeply.
However I am me and he is steelwing. We are not one person we are not one mind nor do we try and act like it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm confused, are you saying your not his out of game partner/wife/girlfriend or are you objecting to being simply thought of as Steelwing's wife instead of your own entity.
Welcome to the forums Mrs. Steelwing. I see I won't have to guess at which person is Steel's SO ;).
I would expect most items in general to not have a permanent presence in game; when a player logs out, I'd expect the stuff he had on his person to log out with him and be safe (provided he logged out in an area safe enough, etc). So too for mounts, I don't think having them persist on logout is necessary as that would be an extra restriction placed on them separate from other items.
I hope that mounts essentially become consumables just like the other items we'll have; every so often you have to replace your armor set, and every so often you have to replace your mount. Yes, some people will whine about that, but I don't necessarily see that as indicating that mounts should be done different.
For others, though I would agree to initially having mounts pumped out of a crafting queue just like wooden planks or iron weapons, I also would not object to some crafts getting more unique nuances to them. In the case of animal husbandry, perhaps in order to get specific keywords on your mount you have to breed them into it, rather than just selecting which ones you want while crafting. Not a needed system, but just something a little more interesting.
1) I am not steelwings significant other I am a person in my own right wih my own personality and we agree where we agree and disagree where we disagree
2) Yes I am not suggesting mounts stay around when you log out. I suggested mounts should be as permanent as any other resource if they come from the same source
I am married to Steelwing. We have two daughters. I care for him deeply.
However I am me and he is steelwing. We are not one person we are not one mind nor do we try...
Then maybe you should reply using your own account. lol
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Yes by the way I used his login as I had logged out on my way to bed when he drew my attention to this post. If you are worried I can log back on and post as myself
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@Valtorious I think she was posting at the same time but if you want me to call her back I can do
You have an interesting wife Steelwing. But I think that is great. A partner that can think on their own is a good thing in my book.
Not something I got a lot of choice in to be honest ;).
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Yes by the way I used his login as I had logged out on my way to bed when he drew my attention to this post. If you are worried I can log back on and post as myself
For massive confusion. I could never share a computer in that manner- you have yours, I have mine, and there's also one available for guest use.
It isn't uncommon in my family for there to be at least twice as many internet-enabled devices in the house as people, even when many guests are present.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, are we going to want rare mounts? Like Unicorns or Nightmares, the kind of thing you shouldn't see very often. If so how do we keep them rare?
Less problematic is implausible mounts, Dwarven Bear cavalry jump to mind when I think of exotic, but not rare mounts. You could change bears out with Boars and get the same effect. Do we want exotic mounts? Lord knows I would probably make a dwarf just so that I could be have him ride a bear into battle.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, are we going to want rare mounts? Like Unicorns or Nightmares, the kind of thing you shouldn't see very often. If so how do we keep them rare?
Less problematic is implausible mounts, Dwarven Bear cavalry jump to mind when I think of exotic, but not rare mounts. You could change bears out with Boars and get the same effect. Do we want exotic mounts? Lord knows I would probably make a dwarf just so that I could be have him ride a bear into battle.
*snicker* and my Halfling has a petite pony with long wavy mane and tail and a suspiciously trademarked picture on it's left flank....
That aside, I really hope we can breed exotic mounts as part of the game. Sort of like crafting that special magic weapon. You can't just go to the store and buy it, you have to craft it yourself or get it from someone who can craft it.
I can see characters who are horsebreeders for an entire guild or town. They raise the horses the others use in combat. I rather like that idea.
Boojum the brown bunny
Yes by the way I used his login as I had logged out on my way to bed when he drew my attention to this post. If you are worried I can log back on and post as myselfFor massive confusion. I could never share a computer in that manner- you have yours, I have mine, and there's also one available for guest use.
It isn't uncommon in my family for there to be at least twice as many internet-enabled devices in the house as people, even when many guests are present.
We don't share computers she had shut hers down and was on the way to bed when I drew her attention to the reply so she borrowed my keyboard for a retort.
@Hark
Would everyone be able to get a rare mount? How 'rare' should rare be?
Your ideas in the rare monsters thread were spot on.
Perhaps a similar concept: Very rare creatures that spawn within a Hex that can be captured and tamed.
I'm not sure how capturing could be worked out via game play. Fight it and beat it to near death to get it to submit? Should capturing it require a team?
That aside, I really hope we can breed exotic mounts as part of the game.
Breeding is another possibility, but should you be able to breed a Unicorn or Nightmare? It would be simple to just make them rare breeding recipes, but it also seems like things that couldn't/shouldn't be bred.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One thing to consider when talking about rare mounts: there is going to be an MTX (real-money) shop in game, which would probably sell pretty mounts such as nightmeres or unicorns. What Ryan has proposed to avoid any pay-to-win is that the cash shop gives you a kit which you can apply to any one mount at a time, that changes its appearance to whatever you were buying.
This isn't to say that will be the only way to get snazzy mounts; I just remembered that from a while back and wanted to throw in that tidbit of information.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Breeding is another possibility, but should you be able to breed a Unicorn or Nightmare? It would be simple to just make them rare breeding recipes, but it also seems like things that couldn't/shouldn't be bred.
Well, I don't think it has to be an either/or thing. I can see breeding horses to get exotic or custom coloration or ability. I can also see going on an adventure to get a unicorn or a pegasis or a paladins warhorse. That way there is is fun to be had for the crafters and fun to be had for the adventurers.
I think limiting the way you get a mount (or a sword or a spell or a magic item) to only one way is a mistake. There should be different things with similar abilities along different paths. So the shadowsword might be available from the cryptking adventure while the a crafter can build a Sword that has roughly similar stats.. if he is skilled enough and can find the bizzare ingredients.
Boojum the brown bunny
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really hope so...since I'm wanting to play a Knightly fellow (not a Paladin) like a Cavalier or a Lancer. Medium to Heavey cavalry would be alot of fun. Joust's anyone?Light cavalry with a short bow wins EVERYTHING.
While very effective, light cavalry with bows are vulnerable to combined arms infantry forces (archers/slingers/crossbowmen have better range than mounted archers and heavy infantry units can keep the light cavalry from charging the light troops). King Richard was able to keep the Muslim cavalry at bay during his marches during the Third Crusade by intermixing heavy infantry and missile troops. His biggest problem was keeping the knights from chasing the Muslim cavalry and getting separated from the infantry column, which almost always led them to being ambushed.
As a Paladin, I really hope they have mounts in the game, and allow you to fight while mounted. Lord of the Rings Online managed to created a mounted combat system when they got to Rohan. It isn't a perfect system, but they also had a 4 year old game system to tack it onto.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In plains combat you are probably right, but light cavalry is less usefull in dense forest and craggy mountains.
Cavalry as a whole is ineffective in dense forest and craggy mountains.
As for crusades and mongols and whatnot, it really depends on which army vs. which army to be honest. As a general rule of thumb, however, mongols win. This isn't due to any actual battles but on a campaign scale as a whole. The mongols seiges looked like this: there is a horde out there somewhere. It is eating all your crops, killing all your people, and basically simply existing somewhere out there. You don't know exactly where, and whenever you get information they have already moved. So either you go out into a series of ingenious ambushes and hit and run tactics or you starve to death. Or you could surrender and be raped/tortured to death.
That, more than anything is what made the mongols so effective. They did not participate in western/middle eastern style war. They had no villages, no resource banks, no monuments to protect. They were a giant pooled entity who's very existence put more pressure than an actual siege. The bow cav was nice, but most of those where actually heavy bow cav, not light bow cav. And there are very few "battles" with the mongols to show the effectiveness on a large scale (though I assure you they were very effective)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Cavalry as a whole is ineffective in dense forest and craggy mountains.
As for crusades and mongols and whatnot, it really depends on which army vs. which army to be honest. As a general rule of thumb, however, mongols win. This isn't due to any actual battles but on a campaign scale as a whole. The mongols seiges looked like this: there is a horde out there somewhere. It is eating all your crops, killing all your people, and basically simply existing somewhere out there. You don't know exactly where, and whenever you get information they have already moved. So either you go out into a series of ingenious ambushes and hit and run tactics or you starve to death. Or you could surrender and be raped/tortured to death.
That, more than anything is what made the mongols so effective. They did not participate in western/middle eastern style war. They had no villages, no resource banks, no monuments to protect. They were a giant pooled entity who's very existence put more pressure than an actual siege. The bow cav was nice, but most of those where actually heavy bow cav, not light bow cav. And there are very few "battles" with the mongols to show the effectiveness on a large scale (though I assure you they were very effective)
Afghanistan has a very long history of failed invasions dating at least as far back as Alexander the Great getting kicked around in the Kandahar region. It doesn't get brought up as often, but somebody did roll into Afghanistan and take over completely, and that guy was Genghis Khan. I don't know how he pulled it off because Afghanistan is all crazy craggy mountains, but he pulled it off so well that he is still effectively the subject of hero worship in Afghanistan, and important or powerful people as still called "Khan."
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Goblin Squad Member
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The mongols seiges looked like this: there is a horde out there somewhere. It is eating all your crops, killing all your people, and basically simply existing somewhere out there. You don't know exactly where, and whenever you get information they have already moved. So either you go out into a series of ingenious ambushes and hit and run tactics or you starve to death. Or you could surrender and be raped/tortured to death.Afghanistan has a very long history of failed invasions dating at least as far back as Alexander the Great getting kicked around in the Kandahar region. It doesn't get brought up as often, but somebody did roll into Afghanistan and take over completely, and that guy was Genghis Khan. I don't know how he pulled it off because Afghanistan is all crazy craggy mountains, but he pulled it off so well that he is still effectively the subject of hero worship in Afghanistan, and important or powerful people as still called "Khan."
I actually already answered this to some extent. The Afghan people are, by necessity reliant on fixed locations (Oasis and the like). They develop these areas of settlement. The mongols are able to survive on tundra and desert equally, and know well tactics for preserving water. Essentially you just sit around the countryside and burn up all the farms then use those same mountain crags to launch ambushes when the folk come out.
You gotta remember, societies as a whole CANNOT survive in those crags and whatnot without supplies, and apart from a few citadels they were mostly filled with religious sites and that is it. People didn't voluntarily live in the caves of the mountains, and they still don't without due reason.
Also, mongols were good both mounted and unmounted so terrain only slightly caused problems, they would just dismount when it suited them and mount again when the need/ability rose.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I actually already answered this to some extent. The Afghan people are, by necessity reliant on fixed locations (Oasis and the like). They develop these areas of settlement.
Not so much. All of their water comes from runoff as the snow melts in the mountains, so long as they have mountains the Afghans have water. Northern Afghanistan is even less tied down with lush forests before the Russians burned them down. While most would loathe to do so, the Afghans are quite able to pick up and move somewhere else. The country actually has a significant nomad population living primarily off of live stock.
If I cared to do the research, I would expect that period Afghans were very similar culturally to the Mongols and may have seen more peaceful relations with the Mongols than most explaining the hero worship when compared to how most cultures viewed the Mongols as monsters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not so much. All of their water comes from runoff as the snow melts in the mountains, so long as they have mountains the Afghans have water. Northern Afghanistan is even less tied down with lush forests before the Russians burned them down. While most would loathe to do so, the Afghans are quite able to pick up and move somewhere else. The country actually has a significant nomad population living primarily off of live stock.
If I cared to do the research, I would expect that period Afghans were very similar culturally to the Mongols and may have seen more peaceful relations with the Mongols than most explaining the hero worship when compared to how most cultures viewed the Mongols as monsters.
For starters, when I stated Oasis and the like I was including river valleys. They are to the same effect here, You build a settlement you do it near a water source.
Next. It "has". The nomadic culture is very much an off and on regional thing. I do not profess to know much about them but same rules apply to them as to everyone else: they go where the water and/or the grazing is.
Next. I assume you read The Kite Runner at some point? Remember how it describes the "beautiful beautiful rich cities" and the other areas of culture, places that had been established for a thousand years or more?
Next. As for cultural similarities: absolutely! Arabian horses, pride in breeding, silk trade, rugs all were connections. That doesn't affect what I said though, Mongols came and conquered, and not always through violence
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Goblin Squad Member
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Boulder desert is a far better description than river valley. The afghan people have a way of taking a trickle of water and turning it into enough to water their fields. They like their sedentary life style, but they aren't nearly as attached to a location as one might think, and the Nomads certainly aren't any more attached to water than the Mongols were.
I'll need to get back to you on the actual age of their cities. Afghanistan certainly has a far more civilized history than most people think, but the Afghans are also prone to exaggeration, in particular of the age of their wonders. Afghanistan has and had some true wonders from its Buddhist period, but most of its wonders and great cities are the product of its conversion to Islam which happened significantly later in its history.