Allies, Auxilia and Mercs

[dvk901]

First, it's apparent that several factions..Rome, Carthage, and Sparta in particular historically used a variety of warriors that weren't 'specifically' their
own. (I know there are others, but these are good examples). Rome historically used many allied troops from many different backgrounds, Sparta used troops to suppliment it's 'core' Spartan' warriors, the Ptolemics used Celtic warriors, and Carthage used a large variety of mercenaries from all over.

So, aside from making units like the City Hoplites available as 'recruitable mercenaries' in the town\city they are named for, and creating a lot of new mercs because so many of the old units have been removed......there are a lot of other changes.

1. I want Carthage's unit descriptions to reflect that most of their units are mercenaries.....(this isn't done yet, but it needs to be.)
2. Carthage will be able to recruit a number of Iberian units in the 'west' AOR....which is Spain. ((Done)
3. Carthage will be able to recruit Celtic Infantry (couple units) and Cavalry in Northern Italy and Gaul. (Done)
4. Seleucid, Pergamon, Pontus and Egypt will be able to recruit Galatian units in Anatolia. They will be mercs for others. (Mostly done)
5. Egypt will be able to recruit Celtic units in East Delta......probably a clone of the Galatians. (WIP)
6. All City Hoplites are recruitable by all in their city of origin. In RS2, the Sicilian Hoplite is now 'Massilian', and Tarentum is 'Bithynian'. (Done)
7. Roman units other than their 'inherent' ones will be divided into 'pre-Imperial' and 'post-Imperial Reforms':

Pre-Imperial Reforms:
Aedui Infantry available in barbarian areas (done)
Aedui cavalry ditto. (done)
Gallic Archers (basically a warband archer) available in Celtic areas only. (Done)
Greek Allied Archers available in the toe of Italy and Greek areas only. (Done)
Tarantine cavalry (a substitute for Cavalry Auxilia, a made up unit) available in the toe of Italy and Greek areas only. (Done)
Roman Equites available only in Italy, (Done)

Post-Imperial Reforms:
The above units all disappear, replaced with, their professional or paid counterparts.

Auxilia Cohorts from various areas and available in various areas. (9 or 10 of them, all the same skin, Done)
Ala Cohorts available as historically as I could make them. One example, Celtic Ala Cavalry regiments fighting the Parthians in the east, so available in an Eastern Fort. These will use
various other faction models and textures. (6-7 of them......most waiting for new skins)
Sagitaurii Auxillia Archers...Celtic, Cretan, Armenian, Syrian....available where historically plausible. Syrians pretty much fought all over. (4 of them, Done)

Roman Medium and Heavy (Legionary) cavalry will be gone...replaced with Ala units. 'Ala Italica' will just be a universally available 'Legionary' regiment.

[rory o'kane]

ah, excellent! i might add Nubian Archers to that list! for the romans, Carthaginians and Ptolemies too!
Syracusean Marines should be recruitable (they supplied Rome with archers) to the Romans, Greeks and Eastern blokes who conquer them
oh, and the Galatian heavy infantry and cavalry should be available before the Imperial Reforms (it was Augustus who folded the XXII Deietoriana into the roman army), but only the cavalry should be recruitable after the Reforms (unless you keep the spear-men as an auxilia equivalent and replace the heavy infantry swordsmen with the Legio XXII Deietoriana).


oh, and what's to happen with Belearic/Rhodian Slingers? are they staying as mercs? or becoming an AOR unit?

[icydawgfish]

Very nice, I'm impressed. And I remember a few days ago you mentioned a few features unique to Sparta, is this it, or do you have something else in store? *cough*agoge*cough*

[dvk901]

Well, because at present I have not a mental concept of what Sparta's units will be like, I have only 'thoughts'.

My impression from what I see being discussed is that they will be a bit like Carthage...not a lot of units 'of their own'...with a lot of emphasis on 'Helot' type units. I see the Spartans as having a low regard for these warriors, and being distrustful of them. How to portray that is a difficult question. But they have a rather 'unique' AOR set up that includes all the 'Independent Greek Cities' regions...spread out over the map....as well as a 'greek' one. This will place them in the difficult postion of having to capture strong Naval Cities....such as Athens or Rhodes...in order to build the best ships, and of forming a sort of 'Greek Empire' based from these regions, where many different kinds of units could be available to them. So their intial goals might be to conquer the Independent Greeks, unite them all in a common cause, and then go on from there.

Just some thoughts, as I said.

This is the current list of mercs I have, by the way:

merc barb peltast
merc huntsman gaul
merc barbarian infantry
merc falx thracian
merc warband sword
celtic tribal swordsmen (sword only)
merc celtic sword warrior (gaul, pilum, sword)
merc late celtic warrior (celtic, pilum, sword)
merc barbarian cavalry
merc barb horse archer (sarmatian)
merc sarmatian cavalry
merc balearic slingers
merc carthaginian infantry
merc celtiberian spearman
merc spanish infantry
merc libyan spearmen
merc numidian javelinmen
merc cantabrian jinetes
merc numidian cavalry
merc thracian peltast
merc greek hoplites
merc auxilia infantry
merc cilician pirate
greek thracian
merc elephants
merc foot skirmisher
merc horse archers (scythian)
merc scythian medium cavalry
merc scythian horse archers
merc rhodian slingers
merc eastern infantry
merc heavy archer (eastern)
merc hyrkanian horsemen
merc median cavalry
merc east noble cavalry
syrian archers
seleucid indian elephant
merc judaean slingers
merc judean infantry
merc levy pikemen
merc free pikemen
merc galatian heavy sword
merc galatian noble cavalry
merc greek peltast
merc heavy peltast (greek)
merc greek archer
merc cretan archers
merc thureophoroi
merc tarantine cavalry
merc greek medium cavalry

Bear in mind this is the units name in EDU.txt...not the units actual description. There will be more..I'm no where near finished.

[icydawgfish]

Very nice, bravo! It's nice to have other merc relying factions besides Carthage. Kinda spices up the campaign and battlemaps. Also, for the city hoplites, Massilian hoplites? Or was that city obsolete by the time of the start date? Also, will only Greek cities be swappable? Or will there be others? Sorry for all the questions, but I'm a tad bit curious. Also, I remember you talkingabout buildings in the suggestions thread in the Dev forums, I don't know if you saw my suggestions, but I had quite a few pposted in a list in the suggestions forums here. Anyways, very impressive work DVK.

[dvk901]

Buildings...my nemeis!! I have spent hours and hours on one tree, only to give up and go on. I have an 8 level historical building tree I can't get to work, and I've just decided I gotta focus on getting RS2 playable and leave that for later. So for now, I'm only adding what is absolutely necessary for the functionality of the mod, and will either focus on adding others later..or maybe someone who can do it will step foward and save what little hair I have left!