~525 BC ITALY
All sandboxes except the Pyrrhus of Epirus (Eagle King) campaign and the Invader Mode (A New Home) scenario. Also modded sandbox scenarios such as Hegemony 500’s Reign of Ares, Warlord, Megafactions, Hernici etc


(a): Can only spawn in this setting with the “More AI Invasions” mod
(b): Faction from the Megafactions mod
(c): Faction from the Hernici mod
(d): Faction from the Sicily-only sandbox
(e): Faction from the Etruria-only sandbox
(f): Can only exist in this setting with the “Hegemony 500” mod

(1): Himera originally had a mixed dialect but Euboean was used in an “official” capacity
(2): Campania was likely not yet inhabited by Oscan speakers, instead there was a poorly known language or languages that we usually call “Pre-Samnite”
(3): While the Elymoi and Sikanoi had their own languages, I could find even less about them than Sikel and AFAIK none of the languages of the native Sicilians (not even Sikel) have been definitively deciphered. As such the Sikeloi, Elymoi and Sikanoi have been grouped together, sharing a very basic nameset with next to no details.
(4): AFAIK we know next to nothing about Ligurian. Due to speculation that Ligurian may have been related to Lepontic, I opted to use Lepontic to represent the Ligures.

~400 BC ITALY
Invader Mode (A New Home scenario), also the modded Invader Scenario “Welcome to Oinotria” from Hegemony 500


(a): Invader faction
(b): Can only exist in this setting with the “Hegemony 500” mod

(1): Himera was colonized by Syrakousai ~476 BC, and its dialect became more fully Doric rather than Euboean
(2): By now Campania should be speaking Oscan, rather than “Pre-Samnite”
(3): While the Elymoi and Sikanoi had their own languages, I could find even less about them than Sikel and AFAIK none of the languages of the native Sicilians (not even Sikel) have been definitively deciphered. As such the Sikeloi, Elymoi and Sikanoi have been grouped together, sharing a very basic nameset with next to no details.
(4): AFAIK we know next to nothing about Ligurian. Due to speculation that Ligurian may have been related to Lepontic, I opted to use Lepontic to represent the Ligures.
(5): From this time period there seems to be a regional difference in Etruscan, mostly just to do with which symbol is used for the /k/ sound
(6): I’m not aware of any notable difference between Punic in 525 BC and in 400 BC, so Carthage just uses the early set here as well

~275 BC ITALY
The Eagle King (Pyrrhus of Epirus) campaign


(a): Faction doesn’t start off independent but still has native cities on the map (and could presumably declare independence over the course of the game in theory)
--Also note Volsci, Zancle, Sybaris and the individual Etruscan factions no longer have any native cities on the map and are therefore not included

(1): Rhegion probably started speaking Syracusan Doric after 386 BC when the native Euboean population was conquered and sold as slaves by Syracuse
(2): The native languages of the Sikeloi and Elymoi were dying out by this point and being replaced by Greek. Though I’m not sure which variant of Greek they adopted, I figured Syracusan was by now the most widespread in Sicily so I went with that.
(3): The southern Oscans (Mamertines, Lucani and Bruttii) have by now switched to using the Greek alphabet, meaning they get a different nameset that reflects the change in orthography
(4): AFAIK we know next to nothing about Ligurian. Due to speculation that Ligurian may have been related to Lepontic, I opted to use Lepontic to represent the Ligures.
(5): I’m not aware of any notable difference between Etruscan in 275 BC and in 400 BC, so Etruria just uses the same mid set here. I chose the Northern set because a good amount of Southern Etruria has already been conquered by the Romans, so I figured North Etruscan is more representative for those Etruscans still independent
(6): Similarly I couldn’t find any notable differences in Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish between 400 BC and 275 BC, so they still just use the mid sets

~225 BC IBERIA
Iberia mod, both invader mode and regular sandbox. Used 225 BC because that’s around the time when the Romans first came to Iberia, so I wanted to use that version of Latin. For the other factions the exact point in the 3rd Century BC doesn’t matter much anyway.


(a): Invader-mode only faction

(1): Celtiberian had a geographical split which mainly only had to do with the use of alphabet. I don’t think we know exactly which tribes used which forms, and the division may not have been a very clean one regardless. Using the locations of certain known Celtiberian inscriptions as a base, I attempted to divide the factions as accurately as I could.
(2): Cantabri, Varduli and Turmodigi were likely Celtic but I’m not aware that we know anything about their language. I lumped them in with (West) Celtiberian for being the closest other Celtic-speakers geographically.
(3): The Celtici and Turduli I also couldn’t find anything about, but they lived in areas where the Tartessian rather than the Celtiberian script would probably have been used. So they use Celtiberian but with the Tartessian script’s rules.
(4): Iberian was also split in its use of alphabets. Again this wasn’t a very clean split but non-dual signaries seem to be best known for the southern Iberians (Oretani & Bastetani), whereas non-dual signaries don’t seem to be attested for the northern Iberians much until a later date. A small group of Iberians (approximately the in-game Contestani) instead just used an alphabet derived from Greek.

~700 BC LATIUM
Latium mod. Differences with 525 BC are really minor since not much is known this far back.


(1): The Rutuli’s exact origins aren’t well known but they are sometimes suspected to have been related to the Etruscans.

~360 BC NORTHERN GREECE
Macedon mod.


(1): By now, Macedon had adopted Attic Greek as its official language, rather than the native Macedonian.

~380 BC DALMATIAN ISLANDS
Skirmish maps mod.


(1): Korkyra Melaina was a Cnidian colony, AFAIK we don’t know much about the Cnidian dialect so I used Rhodian, as Cnidos was confederated with the Rhodians and likely would have had a similar dialect.

~425 BC RHODES
Skirmish maps mod.