Love it! I think it fits the spirit of what you're trying to achieve perfectly.Faction Traits
I've changed the League's faction traits to the following:
- Philhellenes: Diplomatic Bonus with Hellenic factions (+35)
- The League wipes out Epirus and Makeon early on, who both have Greek diplo penalties. The League is seen as a savior to Greek city-states and colonies, and a potential ally to the other successor states.
- Guardians of Delphi: Public order bonus from Hellenic Culture (+4)
- Per Epanastatis idea, which is good.
- Military Decline: Increased Non-Mercy Recruitment Costs (+10%)
- Rhodes, Athens, and Pergamon all have this, and Sparta should too tbh. It's historically accurate and a reasonable handicap.
Glad to see points 1 and 2 hereUnits
- Epeirote Thesprotian Infantry are awesome, flavorful, and balanced. My only gripe is that they're from...*shudders* Epirus
- I've changed the Merc Pikes' name to "Hellenic Pikes"
- I'm still uneasy about having Epirus' Elite Pikes on the roster. I think they should be removed, barring balance considerations
As for the Elite Pikes, I tend to agree that the roster would be fine without them.
I don't really "get" the emblem... what does the Omega represent? AFAIK in Greek history the Omega was used to represent the year of death, up until Christianity took root and then it was used as part of the alpha-omega digramma to represent God as the start and end of all things.Flavor
I'd like to continue modding the text files to replace "Athens" with the "Hellenic League" and the faction description. Also, this is a great emblem, but it has to be modded to be compatible with DEI, and changes the UI a bit.
To me, the helmed Athena emblem or even the Zeus Thunderbolts emblem of Syracuse are a better fit - after all the Gods are something all Greeks can get behind.
I'm not sure if they're still around, but I remember late game Massalia used to have Thorax Hoplites - that would suit nicely. Alternatively they also had these Romanised sword units or another keltohellenic sword unit that could both fit as the "core" army unit late game.Balance
The biggest issue is that the League has no good pop 2 Thorax units. This forces it into pop 1 units late game. Is this a weakness we should address or accept? If address, what units could we add? If accept, how should the League play late game?