The Alan Caganate
Historically, in 387 AD Armenia was divided between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire. In the very beginning of V AD the Alani tribes returned to the Caucasus from the Western Europe. So at this point the mod is to be changed. Thanks to Ramon there are all necessary files and descriptions so it was possible for me to introduce Alan units. Besides, I've done some corrections, more particularly, I have corrected the Sarmatian Armoured Archers - now they use swords for melee as it is depicted on their unit cards. I had to redo their texture and also the Sarmatian Argaragantes texture in order to give these units proper weapons. I have also refined the Sassanian recruitment tree prolonging the recruitment terms of their heavy cavalry (which was given also higher cost and upkeep) and the Alani building tree to offer them a choice between paganism and christianity. The other changes involve diplomacy: the Alani are initially at war with the Sassanids and have an alliance with the Slavs, - and cultural corrections (the Hephtalites and the Huns now are of the same culture - both were Turks - while the Alani use the nomad culture; buildings icons are still to be changed).
The campaign description for the Alani:
Native unit roster does not include infantry units - only AOR troops are available. The only exclusion was made for Horde Bosphoran Infantry (corrected as the mod original used bosphoran_warrior model but bosphoran_infantry unit cards and description - now spearmen). It also does not include ultra-light cavalry/HA with 0-turn recruitment term, starting with medium-heavy lancers. This is done to prevent the Alani from becoming stack-producing machine as their native cavalry troops aren't much weaker than the Sassanian ones. The units size of the Alan Horse Archers for the Alani was increased from 25 to 45 leaving for other factions as it was (+1 unit slot).The Alan Caganate
Difficulty Factor: ESTIMATED HARD
The Alani are an Iranian-speaking people who have dominated the southern steppes for centuries, a loose coalition of smaller tribes including the Scythians and Roxolani. Roman sources also call them "the Sarmatians" and even "the Scythians", yet these tribes were just part of the tribal alliance as well as the Alani themselves. Originally they held a region from Danube river to Ural mountains and from the Caucasus to the northern forests. The invasion of the Goths in III AD divided them in two separate confederations: the Caucasian Alans and the Danube Alans. In IV AD the Huns made the Caucasian Alans a part of their alliance and set them to move westwards but being reinforced by the Danube branch the Alani broke the alliance and went through the Western Europe to Africa and then back to the Caucasus. Historically, they were crushed only by the Mongols in XIII AD.
The Alani are superb horsemen. Unlike most of their neighbours, their army consists mostly of heavy cavalry, not so heavily armored as Sassanid ones but far more numerous. They value bravery and fighting skills above all, and are not to be easily ovecome. The Alani are in a way similar to the Huns in terms of warfare - their heavy cavalry is at least as powerful as the hunnic one - but more civilized. They have a long history and are not just excellent warriors - even the Romans often employed them as mercenaries - but also good traders. They guarded trade caravans following from the Far East to Europe and back, and so they had enough money to arm more heavy cavalrymen then any other nation. Utilize their warriors correctly and they will be the key to victory.
The Sarmatian Lancers
Horde Alan Cavalry (almost similar to the Alan Horse Archers)
The Sarmatian Argaragantes
The Alan Lancers
The Royal Argaragantes
As you can see on this screenshot, the horde sarmatian lancers are more numerous than the "regular" ones. This is balanced by slightly lower stats of all the horde cavalry units and almost non-existent horde infantry.
Also I must mention that steppe/Iranian/Roman heavy cav units were given extra charge and also area attribute for spears. Super-heavy cavalry was also given combat penalty in snow.
And to prove the statement in the campaign desc that "unlike most of their neighbours, their army consists mostly of heavy cavalry, not so heavily armored as Sassanid ones but far more numerous". According to the historical and archaeological researchers the total part of heavy cavalry was 7% in the Roman armies, 15-16% in the Iranian armies and about 50% in the Alan and Hunnic armies.
Install instructions:
- Install clean Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion
- Upgrade to version 1.6
- Install IBFD 7.0 and patch it to 7.04
- Create in Rome - Total War installation directory a folder named ibfd_tar and copy there all the files from the ibfd folder
- Download and run patch from here; when uncompressing, point to the Rome - Total War installation directory
- Run the game using following command (you can create a batch file or shortcut)
rometw-bi.exe -mod:ibfd_tar -show_err
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Originally Posted by Orthanner
