Little question...

**MatrixStorm** · October 27, 2009, 01:11 PM

I'm a big fan of ancient weapons, especially swords.
Therefore, I was looking for a faction with sword-based units, but no barbarian factions because the lack of advanced cities.
The only faction that is civilised and has sword-based units are the Romans, no others!

Didn't the Carthaginians had sword-based units?

**Quinn Inuit** · October 27, 2009, 07:55 PM

Not really. Most civilized factions used spear-based units. I wonder why the Romans could afford the swords and most others couldn't?

**Sir_Crashalot** · October 28, 2009, 01:34 AM

There are many history articles written on the topic, if you are interested, Wikipedia has an excellent article on the history of the roman military which covers the topic well. Alternatively there are many fine articles at the Rome Total War Heaven website, under the History section, link below

http://rtw.heavengames.com/history/general/index.shtml

The short version of the story is that the phalanx is the premier fighting force in the ancient world, since it combines excellent offensive power with good defence, and is relatively easy to train soldiers to fight in it (morale is not so much of an issue when soldiers are crammed into a tight block). The romans actually originally used the phalanx, but it was unsuitable for the hilly Italian terrain (in real life a phalanx is one gigantic formation, instead of a series of smaller blocks as represented in the game). There it is pretty easy to see why almost all the civilisations used the phalanx.

After getting badly owned and losing the city of rome itself to a gallic army, Marcus Furius Camillus reformed the roman army into the Hastati, Principii, Triarii army we see in game, and adopted the sword as the standard weapon. The rest is history.

Realistically no other civilisations really had a reason to adopt the sword so quickly, although after fighting the romans a few times, many eventually did arm their elite units with swords (this aspect is not represented well in game).

Edit: actually many fractions have imitiation legionaries, which are more of less meant to be an response to the romans

**florin80** · October 28, 2009, 11:49 AM

Originally Posted by Quinn Inuit

Not really. Most civilized factions used spear-based units. I wonder why the Romans could afford the swords and most others couldn't?

How do you figure? All those guys with spears and pikes(hoplites, phalangites etc) also had swords.

**MatrixStorm** · October 28, 2009, 03:09 PM

Mmm...
Than there's one thing left:
Playing as a barbarian faction (I'm going to try Iberia^^)

**Quinn Inuit** · October 28, 2009, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by florin80

How do you figure? All those guys with spears and pikes(hoplites, phalangites etc) also had swords.

Oh, you're right, I forgot about that. I guess Sir_C is right and on the flatter terrain where a lot of ancient battles were fought the phalanx was a better option. The Greeks had swords, they just didn't train with them much.

C.A., I think they did adopt the manipular system from the Samnites.

**Caesar Augustus** · October 28, 2009, 05:15 AM

You have the right of it Sir Crashalot.

I also think that they adopted the manipular system from the Samnites?

**Decius_Mus_Lives** · September 13, 2010, 06:24 PM

The sword and javelin style of warfare was pretty generally the way that many Italian cities and tribes fought. It turned out to be very effective against Phalanx units, swords men could beat aside the pikes of the phalangites and get in close, once they did the Phalanx was toast.

MatrixStorm if you want to try another culture with swords men then why not Migrate? If you move quick you can get to Italy before Rome is too strong and wipe them out, then base in Italy and use the Italian AOR. You can do the same with Spain, I've had campaigns with Pontus and Numidia based in Spain and have done really well from there.