General Discussion & Comments

[charles the hammer]

Is this mod dead? I hope not because it is a great time period to explore. I was just wondering because their is little activity and i was just wondering.

[julianus heraclius]

Is this mod dead? I hope not because it is a great time period to explore. I was just wondering because their is little activity and i was just wondering.

No, it's not dead. Just on hold till I finish IJV3.0. I have the necessary cas and texture files for the mid-late 3rd C roman skins.

So it will rise.

Cheers

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

In fact, the Carpi are first recorded under Maximinus Thrax (c.235), though they may even have first encountered the Empire at the time of Caracalla. They are one of the major tribal groupings of the original Gothic migrations - the Iuthungi being the other.

Excuse me if I'm opening up an old and already closed debate, but have you considered starting this c.259/60, with the capture of Valerian and the sole emperorship of Gallienus? It was Gallienus' attempts to combat the Gallic Empire whilst simultaneously staving off Gothic incursions on the Danube that led to the rise of the Illyrians and the creation of the equites Delmatae. What the historians call virtus Illyrici all stems from there.

That said, don't fall into Alfoldi's trap of assuming there was an independent cavalry field army. All the evidence can prove is that the new equites (recruited mainly because Gallienus et al didn't have any other sources of manpower available) acted as an adjunct to the main imperial exercitus.

Anyway, don't give up on this. I for one would love to play a campaign set in the Third Century Crisis.

M<

[legio_XX]

In fact, the Carpi are first recorded under Maximinus Thrax (c.235), though they may even have first encountered the Empire at the time of Caracalla. They are one of the major tribal groupings of the original Gothic migrations - the Iuthungi being the other.

Excuse me if I'm opening up an old and already closed debate, but have you considered starting this c.259/60, with the capture of Valerian and the sole emperorship of Gallienus? It was Gallienus' attempts to combat the Gallic Empire whilst simultaneously staving off Gothic incursions on the Danube that led to the rise of the Illyrians and the creation of the equites Delmatae. What the historians call virtus Illyrici all stems from there.

That said, don't fall into Alfoldi's trap of assuming there was an independent cavalry field army. All the evidence can prove is that the new equites (recruited mainly because Gallienus et al didn't have any other sources of manpower available) acted as an adjunct to the main imperial exercitus.

Anyway, don't give up on this. I for one would love to play a campaign set in the Third Century Crisis.

M<

oh dont orry my friend this mod will be out as soon as juilans and runia roma 8.0 is finished. also if you have played the game the equites Delmatae are in the game and i think they want to focuse on a more fast paced game and get you right into the high point of the crisis, though it would be cool to start the early

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

oh dont orry my friend this mod will be out as soon as juilans and runia roma 8.0 is finished. also if you have played the game the equites Delmatae are in the game and i think they want to focuse on a more fast paced game and get you right into the high point of the crisis, though it would be cool to start the early

Sounds good, though i'd say the crisis of Gallinus IS a high point - not to mention stupidly challenging! You've got Postumus and the Gallic Empire to your west; Odenaethus and the Palmyrenes to the east; the rebellions of Ingenuus and the Macriani in Illyricum and Syria; and you're probably facing a mutiny in Numidia also! On top of that, the Iuthungi are on the move and pressing down through Dacia, and the Carpi are about to go an extended bruise-cruise through Greece and Macedonia. Just surviving to the time of Aurelian is a challenge in itself!

I presume you know that the Delmatae were definitely NOT Cataphractoi or Clibanarii, right? In fact, I'd argue that most of them probably weren't even heavy cavalry, since that makes most sense of their tactics at Naissus, Immae and Emesa.

Also, I noticed some earlier threads asking for a Marian-style reform. Once again, you've probably already figured this out, but the time to do that is with the creation of the Tetrarchy under Diocletian. That's the point at which the military reforms of Gallienus are put onto a regular footing, and the army of the Principate starts to transform into the army of the Dominate found in the Notitia Dignitatum. So your reform would be to introduce BI-style units to replace the standard Roman equites and legions. That would mean that by the time of Constantine, players should have transformed the army completely.

It would have been interesting to try to replicate the equestrian command reforms of Gallienus, but i think that's a little beyond the sophistication of the game - best just to intro the Illyrian viri militares as characters: Aureolus, Marcianus, Volusaianus, Claudius, Aurelian, Probus etc.

Hope this doesn't tread on anyone's toes - just thinking aloud, 'cos I was really disappointed that BI was so limited, and i'm really excited that someone's planning to address this.

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

Correction - my mistake.

The Iuthungi are a sub-group of the Vandals, not the Goths.

The Goths at this time are made up of the Carpi, the Heruli, and some would argue that the Roxolani are actually a sub-grouping of the Gothic tribes. Also, they have boats and they're not afraid to use 'em!

Best,
M<

[legio_XX]

trust me posting your opnion and facts is the last thing that will bother people lol. but yes the dalmtia are lighter calvery in this game. Have you tryed Runia Roma if not its the mother to this mod and you should its a great game

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

Have you tryed Runia Roma if not its the mother to this mod and you should its a great game

I'd love to, but I don't really have the time. I'm usually so busy that it takes me a year to play out a Total War campaign. So I have to pick my games carefully.

In a way, it's a relief that RO isn't ready yet, as it gives me time to try Empire when it's released. Given my knowledge of the Third Century army, I'd HAVE to try RO if it was out - even if I disagreed with it.

You know, I only stumbled across all of this because I'm preparing a seminar series that uses RTW to compare great generals from classical history.

M<

[Lord Willy]

No, it's not dead. Just on hold till I finish IJV3.0. I have the necessary cas and texture files for the mid-late 3rd C roman skins.

So it will rise.

Cheers

Good News

[legio_XX]

I'd love to, but I don't really have the time. I'm usually so busy that it takes me a year to play out a Total War campaign. So I have to pick my games carefully.

In a way, it's a relief that RO isn't ready yet, as it gives me time to try Empire when it's released. Given my knowledge of the Third Century army, I'd HAVE to try RO if it was out - even if I disagreed with it.

You know, I only stumbled across all of this because I'm preparing a seminar series that uses RTW to compare great generals from classical history.

M<

..... wish i had you as a teacher

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

[QUOTE]

Since the campaign is still under development, a lot of things are still subject to change

The Factions:

Huns Alans
Goths Goths
Sarmatians Iazyges
Vandals Vandals
Franks Franks
Saxons Saxons
Alemanni Alemanni
Sassanids Sassanids
Celts Celts
Burgundii Iuthungi
Lombardi Arabs
Roxolani Kushans
Slavs Quadi
Moors Moors
Ostrogoths Palmyra
Empire_west Roman Empire
Empire_east Non Playable
Empire_west_rebels Gallic Empire
Empire_east_rebels Non Playable
Romano_british Armenia
Slave Free People

Julianus, since you haven't really started yet, can I make some suggestions which might help make the factions more historical (once again with apologies if this isn’t the forum for this). I should say here that I'm speaking from a primarily Roman perspective - since it seems to me that the real challenge here is putting the Empire back together and becoming the Restitutor Orbis, though I personally would like to see the campaign go beyond that to the re-unification of Constantine.

The Alani don't really figure in the Third Century - their major migration pressure comes during the mid-C4th, when the Huns invade their homeland. During the mid-C3rd, they probably occupied the area north of the Caspian Gap – though I will admit that my knowledge of barbarian migration patterns is sketchy at best. The area they finally occupy north of the Black Sea was occupied by the Heruli at our time during the mid-C3rd. If you need the Alani to act as a northern balance to the Sassanids, then locate them in Vanilla Tribus Alanni and east of that.

Goths = Carpi, based in Vanilla Dacia/Scythia. If you need to squeeze all the Goths into one grouping because you need the other factions for other powers, then Goths = Goths (made up of the Carpi, the Heruli and to a certain extent the Roxolani).

Sarmatians = Iazyges (they are basically the same thing).
Vandals = Iuthungi (which is probably what the C3rd Vandals called themselves).
Franks = Franks.
Saxons = Saxons.
Alemanni = Alemanni.
Sassanids = Sassanids.
The Celts are a little more complicated. Essentially, after the campaigns of Septimius Severus, the northern British tribes were relatively quiet until the campaigns of Allectus denuded the northern frontier. The Antonines and the Severi were dealing with the Maetae and the Caledonii, but the campaigns of 296 and 306 see first references to the Picts. In fact the Panegyrist refers to the: “Caledonii and others in the woods and marshes of the Picts.” So my instinct would be that Celts = Caledonii, as this is the tribe which has most contact with the Empire during the C3rd – and they only ever raise their ugly heads when troops start being siphoned away from the Hadrianic limes.

Burgundii – since the Iuthungi are actually the Vandals, this becomes a free faction to allocate elsewhere. I’d make them the Kushans or the Quadi.

Lombards = Arabs
Roxolani = Roxolani, based in Tribus Getae.

Slavs = Quadi (though since the Burgundii essentially occupy Quadi territory, it might be easier to make the Slavs the Kushans & the Burgundii the Quadi)

Moors = Mauri
Ostrogoths = Heruli, based in Vanilla Maeotis.
Empire_West = Roman Empire (Gallienus/Aurelian et al)
Empire_west_rebels = Gallic Empire
Empire_east_rebels = Palmyrene Empire of Odeanathus & Zenobia

Empire_East – Keep these for your Marius-style reform, which triggers whenever the Roman Empire_West manages to reconquer the whole of the Eastern and Western Empire (which is more than just Gaul & Palmyra). At that point, Diocletian’s reforms kick in – the Empire is split between East & West, and troop-types from the Comitatensian army become available. At the same time, all the barbarian tribes default to ‘migrate’ mode. This, of course, assumes that the campaign goes on beyond the re-unification of the Empire by the Restitutor Orbis.

Romano-British – could also kick in at this point. The minute the Diocletianic reforms are enacted, Roman Britain rebels and declares itself the independent Empire of Carausius (which is actually a little late, but ‘feels’ right).

Slave Free Peoples – I don’t know if this is possible, but it would be interesting if you could make these a quasi-independent faction generated whenever a provincial governor rebels. For instance, in 260, the Pannonian legions declared themselves independent and nominated Ingenuus as Emperor. At the same time, the Syrian legions nominated Macrianus and his son, and marched west after the Palmyrenes muscled in on Syria. By giving these rebellions a recruitment base, you make them more dangerous and mimic the historical importance to the official Roman Emperors of defeating them.

Hope that helps. A truly key thing to remember about the Third Century Crisis is that it is primarily caused by the Roman army itself. Until the reforms of Diocletian removed the incentive to rebel, any general, dux or provincial governor who had any real success would almost automatically be declared emperor by his troops, strip his frontiers and march on Rome. The average life-expectancy of someone claiming to be Emperor at that time was just 2 years, which meant that there was virtually no continuity at the top! Virtus Illyrici was simply a shared strategic vision inherited by the equestrian ‘new men’ appointed under Gallienus which meant that defensive policy stopped changing every time the latest Emperor was assassinated. In game terms, Virtus Illyrici = the strategic vision of the individual player, and in those terms, starting with Gallienus or Aurelian is absolutely the right thing to do.


Good luck. Whatever you decide to do, I’m looking forward to it!
M<

[legio_XX]

i was thinking about how you guys are going to have like a reform and would it not be a good idea to have the praetorians in the game as well? Have them have there own buiding out side of the normal barracks that you can destroy if you dont want them any more so its like disspanding them.Then when you destroy there building you can build the scholae building up. so it would be like the religon buildings you can have one or the other not both.

[julianus heraclius]

i was thinking about how you guys are going to have like a reform and would it not be a good idea to have the praetorians in the game as well? Have them have there own buiding out side of the normal barracks that you can destroy if you dont want them any more so its like disspanding them.Then when you destroy there building you can build the scholae building up. so it would be like the religon buildings you can have one or the other not both.

There will be the Praetorians. The question will be how to implement the "Constantine" Reforms, especially for the Roman Civil War Campaign set in approx. 310AD. I can just see the Battle of Milvian Bridge right now with the final demise of the Praetorians.

If anybody has any suggestions on how to make the reforms work please let me know.

Cheers

[legio_XX]

julian your making me Crazy with your awsome little day dreams!! well you could make it start when the urban barracks is built in constantinople and have like no barracks in the city in the first place then make the urban barracks take a long time to make?

oh and the xgm dodochi guy made a reform for camliean to playbean and the mods for BI, so you should talk to him!

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

There will be the Praetorians. The question will be how to implement the "Constantine" Reforms, especially for the Roman Civil War Campaign set in approx. 310AD. I can just see the Battle of Milvian Bridge right now with the final demise of the Praetorians.

If anybody has any suggestions on how to make the reforms work please let me know.

Cheers

I like the idea about the Praetorians. They were hugely enlarged by Septimius Severus at the start of the 3rd Century, when he replaced the old Praetorians with his own loyal legions at the same time as he recruited the 3 Legiones Parthica. But after that, they don't really figure in the histories until their demise at the Milvian Bridge.

I think the reforms should be pretty simple. Bear in mind that the 'Constantine' reforms are really just an official recognition of ad hoc changes that had dribbled in during the late 3rd Century and were regularised by Diocletian. In other words, the real innovator was Diocletian, not Constantine.

So, assuming you start the Civil War campaign in AD306 with the death of Constantius and the rebellion of Constantine, the reforms would be a kind of Marian-style change that is triggered by the first regime-change of the Civil War (ie. capture of Rome by a different Roman faction). If you want to make this theoretically available to Maxentius as well, you trigger it with the first death/destruction of a Roman faction and its leader.

At that point, all Auxilia turn into Limitanei; all Legions turn into Comitatenses and any Barbarian Mercenaries turn into Foederati. At the same time, barracks stop producing the old-style units of the Principate and switch to Limitanei/Comitatenses etc. Stables can now recruit Cataphractoi, and improved stables in the Eastern Empire can recruit Clibanarii (to be strictly accurate, you should really only limit Clibs to stables in Syria/Palmyra and Mesopotamia). This is also the point where the Praetorian Barracks turns into the Schola Palatinae, from which Palatine units can be raised.

Hope that helps. It's easy to write - less easy to implement, I expect. But if you make it like the Marian reform, you should be able to use the same mechanisms.
M<

[Gen.jamesWolfe]

I like the idea about the Praetorians. They were hugely enlarged by Septimius Severus at the start of the 3rd Century, when he replaced the old Praetorians with his own loyal legions at the same time as he recruited the 3 Legiones Parthica. But after that, they don't really figure in the histories until their demise at the Milvian Bridge.

I think the reforms should be pretty simple. Bear in mind that the 'Constantine' reforms are really just an official recognition of ad hoc changes that had dribbled in during the late 3rd Century and were regularised by Diocletian. In other words, the real innovator was Diocletian, not Constantine.

So, assuming you start the Civil War campaign in AD306 with the death of Constantius and the rebellion of Constantine, the reforms would be a kind of Marian-style change that is triggered by the first regime-change of the Civil War (ie. capture of Rome by a different Roman faction). If you want to make this theoretically available to Maxentius as well, you trigger it with the first death/destruction of a Roman faction and its leader.

At that point, all Auxilia turn into Limitanei; all Legions turn into Comitatenses and any Barbarian Mercenaries turn into Foederati. At the same time, barracks stop producing the old-style units of the Principate and switch to Limitanei/Comitatenses etc. Stables can now recruit Cataphractoi, and improved stables in the Eastern Empire can recruit Clibanarii (to be strictly accurate, you should really only limit Clibs to stables in Syria/Palmyra and Mesopotamia). This is also the point where the Praetorian Barracks turns into the Schola Palatinae, from which Palatine units can be raised.

Hope that helps. It's easy to write - less easy to implement, I expect. But if you make it like the Marian reform, you should be able to use the same mechanisms.
M<

they've had them since 130 AD-recall the Sarmatian Auxiliaries, and Gratian's mobile reserves.

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

they've had them since 130 AD-recall the Sarmatian Auxiliaries, and Gratian's mobile reserves.

Gratian dates to the 360s, so is post-reform anyway.

To a certain extent it depends on how you define 'catafractata'. I'm most convinced by Eadie's argument (JRS 57, 1967) that early Roman catafractarii were not fully armoured cavalry in the proper sense of the term.

But setting aside the debate on whether the Ala I Gallorum et Pannoniorum Catafractata was truly a fully-armoured cavalry unit or merely heavy cavalry with kontos - and even Hyland can't be sure - only one other regular cataphract unit is cited prior to the end of the C3 (the Ala nova firma milliaria catafractaria Philippiana, which may have been in existence from the time of Maximinus if you believe Herodian VIII.1.3).

Yes, Trajan did use Sarmatian cavalry, and though there is also some debate about whether these were truly cataphracts I think the Adamklisi Monument proves that they were. But these were one-off mercenary units, not regular auxilia. And the famous equites Sarmatae of Marcus Aurelius are clearly the result of a foedus, though the term foederati hadn't been invented yet (Dio LXXI.16).

My point here is that you don't really start seeing regular units of equites catafractarii or for that matter clibanarii in any numbers until somewhere round the reign of Diocletian (the Pictavenses and Ambianenses are the first true eq. cat. in the epigraphic record).

The 'reform' of Constantine simply gives these earlier ad-hoc reforms of Diocletian and his predecessors an official nomenclature. So as I said in an earlier post, I'd advocate initiating a Marius-style reform from old-style units to comitatensian units under Diocletian in restitutor orbis, since that's where it most probably happened. But by instituting the same reform in the AD310 campaign, officially turning the old-style units into late Roman units on the accesssion of Constantine, you are replicating the 'feel' of the Constantinian reform, if not the literal fact.

M<

PS: Thanks for reminding me of Arrian, by the way. He refers to a Hadrianic campaign against the Alani, which i had forgotten about. So they had migrated farther west than I believed earlier. I did say that my knowledge of non-C3 Barbarian migration patterns was not great.

[julianus heraclius]

But setting aside the debate on whether the Ala I Gallorum et Pannoniorum Catafractata was truly a fully-armoured cavalry unit or merely heavy cavalry with kontos - and even Hyland can't be sure - only one other regular cataphract unit is cited prior to the end of the C3 (the Ala nova firma milliaria catafractaria Philippiana, which may have been in existence from the time of Maximinus if you believe Herodian VIII.1.3).

If in fact the Ala I Gallorum and the Sarmatian Auxiliary units were cataphracti, I agree that they would most likely not had armoured horses, but probably more heavily armed that your regular heavy cavalry and of course armed with the kontos.

Even in the late period, cataphractarii were more likely to be less armoured than clibinarii units.

[julianus heraclius]

I'm trying to get a handle on the roman titles for this period, both civil and military. Can people please post a list of possible titles that can be used for RO.

Cheers

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

If in fact the Ala I Gallorum and the Sarmatian Auxiliary units were cataphracti, I agree that they would most likely not had armoured horses, but probably more heavily armed that your regular heavy cavalry and of course armed with the kontos.

Even in the late period, cataphractarii were more likely to be less armoured than clibinarii units.

By definition, a unit labelled 'catafractata' or 'catafractarii' is a cataphract unit. The debate has always been what that means.

Hyland admits that she's not sure, but by a close reading of Arrian's Tactica infers that the horses probably wore barded frontal protection when they went into battle - but not during practice sessions.

Eadie thinks that they were heavily armoured cavarlymen carrying kontos on unarmoured (or lightly armoured) horses, and points to various depictions in Roman art to prove it. But to do that, he has to explain away the heavily armoured horseman on the Adamklisi monument as artistic error, which is less than convincing.

However, if you accept that the equites Sarmatae are actually native cataphracts recruited into the Roman army for the express purpose of Trajan's Dacian campaign (hence their depiction on the Adamklisi Monument) and Marcus Aurelius' foedus, then that problem goes away and the rest of Eadie's argument holds up pretty well.

The thing is, not even the real Roman cavalry experts can be certain.

What is more certain is that some time during the mid to late C3, more heavily armoured cavalry on the true cataphract model start to be recruited. Whether this applies to the Ala nova firma under Philip I wouldn't like to say.

Alfoldi believed that Aurelian started to recruit clibanarii after his experience with the Palmyrenes, but his evidence doesn't stack up. Neither the eq. prom. clib. nor the eq. Palm. clib. are firmly attested until the C4th, and the so-called 'clibanarii' on the Arch of Galerius are actually Eadie-style cataphracts in scale mail on unarmoured horses. For me, the killer here is Zosimus I.60-61, which makes it abundantly clear that he couldn't have recruited clibanarii from the Palmyrenes after their defeat.

So the first 'certain' cataphract units in the record are the eq. cat. Pictaveneses and the eq. cat. Ambianenses, which are probably (but not certainly) dated to Diocletian or later.

There is a vexillatio catafractariorum stationed at Eporedia in the Po Valley, possibly during the reign of Gallienus (V.6784), but that brings up the subject of permanent vexillation in this period, which is a whole nother can of worms we should talk about at some point.

By the way, is this the thread to discuss these topics, or should we start another 'debating the evidence' thread?