Thrace

Thrace /ˈθreɪs/ (demonym Thracian /ˈθreɪʃⁱən/; Ancient Greek: Θρᾴκη, Thrāikē;modern Greek: Θράκη, Thráki; Bulgarian: Тракия, Trakija Turkish: Trakya) is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe, centered on the modern borders of Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. In antiquity, it was also referred to as Europe, prior to the extension of the term to describe the whole continent. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east. The areas it comprises are southeastern Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western Thrace), and the European part of Turkey (Eastern Thrace). The biggest part of Thrace is part of present-day Bulgaria. In Turkey, it is also called Rumeli. The name comes from the Thracians, an ancient Indo-European people inhabiting Southeastern Europe.

Etymology

The word itself was established by the Greeks for referring to the Thracian tribes, from Ancient Greek Thrāikē (Θρᾴκη), descending from Thrāix (Θρᾷξ). The name of the continent Europe first referred to Thrace proper, prior to extending its meaning to the whole continent. The region obviously took the name of the principal river there, Hebros, probably from the Indo-European arg "white river" (the opposite of Vardar, meaning "black river"), according to an alternative theory, Hebros means "goat" in Thracian.

Total war

Total war is warfare that includes any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, and typically involves the use of weapons and tactics that result in significant civilian or other non-combatant casualties, whether collateral damage or not. American-English Dictionary defines "total war" as "war that is unrestricted in terms of the weapons used, the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the laws of war are disregarded." The term can also be applied when the war effort requires significant sacrifices by most of the friendly civilian population.

In the mid-19th century, scholars identified "total war" as a separate class of warfare. In a total war, to an extent inapplicable to less total conflicts, the differentiation between combatants and non-combatants diminishes and even sometimes vanishes entirely as opposing sides can consider nearly every human resource, even that of non-combatants, as nevertheless part of the war effort.

Total War: Rome II

Total War: Rome II is a strategy game developed by The Creative Assembly and published by Sega. It was released on 3 September 2013 for Microsoft Windows and is the eighth standalone game in the Total War series of video games. Rome II is a successor to the 2004 game Rome: Total War. The game suffered from significant technical problems upon release (some of which were fixed by the Emperor Edition), but proved a commercial success, surpassing all other games in the Total War series in both sales and number of concurrent players on its release day.

Gameplay

Total War: Rome II is set in the classical antiquity period, and focuses on a more inclusive and in depth portrayal of each culture, which in the original game had been portrayed anachronistically. The grand campaign begins in 272 BC, and lasts for 300 years. However, the player also has the option to play further, as there are no timed victory conditions in Rome II.

The Warscape engine powers the visuals of the game and new unit cameras allows players to focus on individual soldiers on the battlefield, which in itself may contain thousands of combatants at a time. The Creative Assembly has stated that they wish to bring out the more human side of war this way, with soldiers reacting with horror as their comrades get killed around them and officers inspiring their men with heroic speeches before siege towers hit the walls of the enemy city. This is realized using facial animations for individual units, adding a feel of horror and realism to the battles.

All rights reserved

"All rights reserved" is a phrase that originated in copyright law as a formal requirement for copyright notice. It indicates that the copyright holder reserves, or holds for their own use, all the rights provided by copyright law under one specific copyright treaty.

Origins

The phrase appears to have originated as a result of the Buenos Aires Convention of 1910. Article 3 of the Convention granted copyright in all signatory countries to a work registered in any signatory country, as long as a statement "that indicates the reservation of the property right" (emphasis added) appeared in the work. The phrase "all rights reserved" was not specified in the text, but met this requirement.

Other international copyright treaties did not require this formality. For example, the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC), adopted in 1952, adopted the © symbol as an indicator of protection. (The symbol had been introduced in the US by a 1954 amendment to the Copyright Act of 1909.) The Berne Convention rejected formalities altogether in Article 4 of the 1908 revision, so authors seeking to protect their works in countries that had signed on to the Berne Convention were also not required to use the "all rights reserved" formulation. However, because not all Buenos Aires signatories were members of Berne or the UCC, and in particular the United States did not join UCC until 1955, a publisher in a Buenos Aires signatory seeking to protect a work in the greatest number of countries between 1910 and 1952 would have used both the phrase "all rights reserved" and the copyright symbol.