Egyptian Manpower

[ptoss1]

The Ptolemic Dynasty ruled Egypt as foreigners.
Their army was composed of solely Greek forces after conquering Egypt and treated the natives as second class citizens.


However the distance between Macedonia and Egypt caused a shortage of manpower later on in the dynasty.
The Ptolemies tried unsuccessfully to encourage settlement of Greeks in Egypt in order to gain access to what they considered eligible recruitment material. Greeks remained a minority in Egypt and Alexandria became the Greek capital of a non-Greek civilization.


It wasn't until the battle of Raphia in 217 BC that native Egyptians were trained in the Macedonian way of warfare by Ptolemy IV Philopator against Antiochus III of the Seleucids.


Native Egyptians with newly found status revolted. Upper Egypt became independent from the Ptolemaic Kingdom under Hugronaphor, a Nubian, and later on Ankhmakis. The rebel kingdom was independent for nearly twenty years.


Should this be emulated in Rome 2?


There will be Marian reforms for Rome, so should there not be a reform for Egypt as well to recruit native Egyptians?
If not, should Ptolemaic Egypt be burdened with a severe unit limit?


There should be two options. One to keep the status quo with severe manpower limits but a stable society, and two to reform the army and enable Egyptian recruitment but sacrifice stability as a balance.

[saxdude]

Sounds about right.

[Markas]

There is still debate over the use of native Egyptian Machimoi under the Ptolemies. When Diodorus described the 18,000 Ptolemaic infantry at Gaza in 312 BC he described the Egyptians as 'armed and serviceable for battle', which seems an odd expense to make if they weren't at least considered for battle. The fact they are mentioned separately from the Porters, Arrow-carriers and Mine-layers (spiky chain things for elephants) suggest to me they at least made up a reserve line.

[the count]

From what I have seen, there is a good mix of hellenistic and native units. I don't have a problem with that I mean it is about creating history not replaying it. It only makes sense that the Ptolemaic dynasty used this large pool of manpower. There were simply not so much Greeks left to fill the gaps and in the most darkest of days you should of course be able to use whatever is available in the country.

See it like this, you send the natives in the first line as cannon fodder and save your hellenistic units for doing the real work. Besides as human player you can choose yourself which units you recruit.

[Sol Invictus]

I hope this and many other such decisions are scattered throughout the game.

[ptoss1]

I hope this and many other such decisions are scattered throughout the game.

There better be or else...

[ptoss1]

The point I wanted to make is that it's also not just about the army.
It's about how Egyptian society changed after Ptolemy IV started fielding native Egyptians.
It made Egypt unstable, resulting in a major loss of territory for twenty years.
Ptolemaic Egypt started its decline during Ptolemy IV's rule, and it was partly because of his decisions to give Egyptians status.

[Mausolos of Caria]

Let's not forget about Celtic, Libyan, Nubian and most important Jewish mercenaries, besides Greeks and Egyptians

[Mamertine]

The Ptolemic Dynasty ruled Egypt as foreigners.
Their army was composed of solely Greek forces after conquering Egypt and treated the natives as second class citizens.


However the distance between Macedonia and Egypt caused a shortage of manpower later on in the dynasty.
The Ptolemies tried to unsuccessfully to encourage settlement of Greeks in Egypt to gain access to waht they considered eligible recruitment material. Greeks remained a minority in Egypt.


It wasn't until the battle of Raphia in 217 BC that native Egyptians were trained in the Macedonian way of warfare by Ptolemy IV Philopator against Antiochus III of the Seleucids.


Native Egyptians with newly found status revolted. Upper Egypt became independent from the Ptolemaic Kingdom under Hugronaphor, a Nubian, and later on Ankhmakis. The rebel kingdom was independent for nearly twenty years.


Should this be emulated in Rome 2?


There will be Marian reforms for Rome, so should there not be a reform for Egypt as well to recruit native Egyptians?
If not, should Ptolemaic Egypt be burdened with a severe unit limit?


There should be two options. One to keep the status quo with severe manpower limits but a stable society, and two to reform the army and enable Egyptian recruitment but sacrifice stability as a balance.

The point I wanted to make is that it's also not just about the army.
It's about how Egyptian society changed after Ptolemy IV started fielding native Egyptians.
It made Egypt unstable, resulting in a major loss of territory for twenty years.
Ptolemaic Egypt started its decline during Ptolemy IV's rule, and it was partly because of his decisions to give Egyptians status.

Agreed 100%. To add the this in fact, Alexandria's full name was "Alexandria ad Aegyptum" which means Alexandria next to Egypt. Alexandria was not considered an Egyptian city by the Greeks or the native Egyptians. It was an island at the time and was considered a Greek city-state that ran all administrative duties through this one city in only the Greek written and spoken language. If you were a native Egyptian and did not speak Greek (and most did not) you had to hire an interpreter or too bad. You could not plea your case in court or negotiate a price for your crops. The Greeks were physically segregated from native Egyptians as well and given preferred treatment, and for most of the dynasty native Egyptians were not even allowed to step foot in Alexandria, only Greeks and to a lesser extent Roman nobility (for political purposes).

There should be a reform like ptoss1 stated, it would be historically accurate and fun for gameplay. Also if you reformed and included natives Egyptians, your revenue should go down quite a bit since you could not tax the heck out of them without there being more unrest (than there already was).

[Ichon]

There should be a reform like ptoss1 stated, it would be historically accurate and fun for gameplay. Also if you reformed and included natives Egyptians, your revenue should go down quite a bit since you could not tax the heck out of them without there being more unrest (than there already was).

This... Egypt could have a mostly Hellenic army and high income to afford mercenaries but a slightly lower army limit, or could choose to reform and normal army limit but lower tax revenues (since population is offering military service instead of taxes). So a typical campaign might be for Egypt to conquer the nearby regions with the smaller army limit and then reform to allow more armies necessary to keep conquesting and defending a larger Empire. Very similar to what Roman reforms accomplished with allowing lower status citizens to serve in the military and which did destabilize Roman society somewhat as low status citizens with military experience backed former populist generals such as Sulla and Caesar.

[Maleventum]

at the battle of Raphia there were 16.000 egyptians served in the phalanxs plus 4.000 as light infantry, the Diadochi armies (including Egypt ) relied mostly on mercenaries from Greece, Thrace, Galatia, Judea, Crete

[ptoss1]

at the battle of Raphia there were 16.000 egyptians served in the phalanxs plus 4.000 as light infantry, the Diadochi armies (including Egypt ) relied mostly on mercenaries from Greece, Thrace, Galatia, Judea, Crete

Ya, but that's still 2/7th of their entire army. A significant portion if you ask me.

[d4g4n]

Interesting, did not know of this. Always though Ptolomys used Egyptian soldiers fram start.

[Doe3000]

If the Egyptians have families like the Romans and other factions, it would be possible to topple the Ptolemies and replace them with another ruling dynasty, perhaps a native one? Also, perhaps like the Tech tree of Empire Total War, you can research 'native' techs that will lead to increased use of native units in the Ptolemaic army. Then end result of this, just like researching enlightenment philosophies under an absolute monarchy in Empire, is that the people revolt against you - leading to a revolution, a civil war, and the replacement of the Ptolemaic Dynasty.

[ptoss1]

Whooray for stone age Egyptians.

[Revan The Great]

Haven't you heard? The Egyptian roster is full of dark-skinned, head dress-wearing, eyeliner-loving Egyptians. All of the promotional material for them (including the leaked intro) features heavily native Egyptian types, not Hellenic fellows.

I think CA is paying lip service to those who want a historical Egypt, but the native Egyptians are making up an enormous part of the roster. Practically all the soldiers I've seen - including chariot drivers, elephant riders, and the crew of all of their ships are native Egyptians in head dresses, wearing the quilted armor.