Barbarian Unit Sizes

[Remwr]

I was just wondering if any of you had heard anything about the relative unit sizes of the Romans compared to the Gauls or Suebi. Will there be a large difference in size? Seeing as how at battles like Alesia, the gauls outnumbered the Romans by a sizable amount.

[omzdog]

Hmm... strange.
You reference history as if it were a basis for this game.

[Metallistic]

Hmm... strange.
You reference history as if it were a basis for this game.

Well aren't you cute. Another pseudo-historian to wave his flag of discontent. Of course, it is always followed by spewing out exaggerated nonsense that falls apart once one tries to make sense of it.

[omzdog]

Well aren't you cute. Another pseudo-historian to wave his flag of discontent. Of course, it is always followed by spewing out exaggerated nonsense that falls apart once one tries to make sense of it.

Give me your best shot you 2 faced charlatan!

[Metallistic]

Give me your best shot you 2 faced charlatan!

You've been watching way too many movies.

[SVK]

Barbarians had no units since they had no regular army.

[Revan The Great]

I'm not sure what's up with the sarcastic responses.

To answer the OP, I'm not sure if anything has been said about barbarian unit sizes relative to 'civilized' nations. I would hope, and probably expect them to be bigger though.

[omzdog]

I'm not sure what's up with the sarcastic responses.

Well be sure because even inquiry answers questions.

[Remwr]

I'm not sure what's up with the sarcastic responses.

To answer the OP, I'm not sure if anything has been said about barbarian unit sizes relative to 'civilized' nations. I would hope, and probably expect them to be bigger though.

Thanks for the only real response so far

[terryn]

I want larger barbarian agents. So that way the skull stick pops-up out of the screen and hits me in the chin, every time I click the end turn button.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

I guess he is reffering that Celts and specially Germanics had Warbands which were rather smaller than bigger and in the majority not in the size of a cohort, propably less the manstrenght of a centuria. This is offcourse a problem if CA chooses for Gameplay purposes to make again 200 man warbands for them. Germanics for example should not have the advantage of units with many man inside, but more smaller units which are good in ambush and guerrilia warfare. They should be really hard to play and a bit similar than the Hattori in Shogun 2. If we take the first contrahents of rome which were clearly germanics (Arminius and friends) than the largest "Army" they could field was around 15000 man, so manpower should be not their strenght.

[Legion_IX]

I guess he is reffering that Celts and specially Germanics had Warbands which were rather smaller than bigger and in the majority not in the size of a cohort, propably less the manstrenght of a centuria. This is offcourse a problem if CA chooses for Gameplay purposes to make again 200 man warbands for them. Germanics for example should not have the advantage of units with many man inside, but more smaller units which are good in ambush and guerrilia warfare. They should be really hard to play and a bit similar than the Hattori in Shogun 2. If we take the first contrahents of rome which were clearly germanics (Arminius and friends) than the largest "Army" they could field was around 15000 man, so manpower should be not their strenght.

Don't agree with it. Cimbris for example outnumbered the romans in all battles by factor 3-5 to 1. Ceasar also described his battles against germans being outnumbered by their forces. Same story with Marcoomanni and late roman empire. Seems to be that Arminius was the exception rather the rule.

[ashbery76]

I think Barbarian tribe army sizes were greatly exaggerated by Ceaser for political gain.Medieval armies could not field such large forces but we had more reliable history in those times to know for sure.

[Ariovist]

Don't agree with it. Cimbris for example outnumbered the romans in all battles by factor 3-5 to 1. Ceasar also described his battles against germans being outnumbered by their forces. Same story with Marcoomanni and late roman empire. Seems to be that Arminius was the exception rather the rule.

Perhaps you should not believe the numbers the ancient Romans gave, they were vastly exaggerated.
Wikipedia sadly took this numbers for granted, although modern historians all disagree with those numbers.
For example, if the account about the Cimbri would have been correct, there would only be a few hundred people left in all of Germania.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

Don't agree with it. Cimbris for example outnumbered the romans in all battles by factor 3-5 to 1. Ceasar also described his battles against germans being outnumbered by their forces. Same story with Marcoomanni and late roman empire. Seems to be that Arminius was the exception rather the rule.

I specially wrote about germanics were we can be sure about army strenght and that they are really in the majority germanics. With this i excluded the cimbri and Ariovists (the historical figure, not the forum member ) Suebi. I did it because we can't be sure of the origin. The Cimbri were something Proto-Germanic, but propably a mix of many people like the Suebi of Ariovist who led a larger foederation with propably a larger celtic population and inpact. I did it to avoid the endless discussion about the exaggerated number regarding the Cimbri.

[teheboom]

large is always better!

[PROMETHEUS ts]

I guess he is reffering that Celts and specially Germanics had Warbands which were rather smaller than bigger and in the majority not in the size of a cohort, propably less the manstrenght of a centuria. This is offcourse a problem if CA chooses for Gameplay purposes to make again 200 man warbands for them. Germanics for example should not have the advantage of units with many man inside, but more smaller units which are good in ambush and guerrilia warfare. They should be really hard to play and a bit similar than the Hattori in Shogun 2. If we take the first contrahents of rome which were clearly germanics (Arminius and friends) than the largest "Army" they could field was around 15000 man, so manpower should be not their strenght.

Not really correct , When Marius faced the Cimbri and Teutones , the romans were vastly outnumbered by the thousands ... and that happened most of the times abroad
Though is true that germans fought in small warbands usually kinship bounds but then those clustered in larger warbands and then larger armies and so on ... its like roman units had subunits up to the contubernium.

So evenif CA makes a simplification it will be more or less the same probably as other units , so the hope is eventually that germanics get more men per units, and after all they are mostly unarmored and can compensate with numbers ....
Even the roman warfare of maniples won't be possible to represent as well as the large monoblock of a phalanx wall ...

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

Not really correct , When Marius faced the Cimbri and Teutones , the romans were vastly outnumbered by the thousands ... and that happened most of the times abroad
Though is true that germans fought in small warbands usually kinship bounds but then those clustered in larger warbands and then larger armies and so on ... its like roman units had subunits up to the contubernium.

Also again for you:

I specially wrote about germanics where we can be sure about army strenght and that they are really in the majority germanics. With this i excluded the cimbri and Ariovists (the historical figure, not the forum member ) Suebi. I did it because we can't be sure of the origin. The Cimbri were something Proto-Germanic, but propably a mix of many people like the Suebi of Ariovist who led a larger foederation with propably a larger celtic population and inpact. I did it to avoid the endless discussion about the exaggerated number regarding the Cimbri.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

Also again for you:

There had not been only the Cimbri , the teutons , 8 wich were germans anyway ) but many other tribes, whenever the Romans went abroad they went with limited men supply , just as any other nation did .
On the countrary home playing tribes coul dcoun't on the local conscription eventually , something not available to romans abroad or any army abroad .

The only difference in this is when whole populations migrated like the case of Cimbri and teutones, in that case theyhad a massive number by start as because its a total movement of population and not just an army campaigning abroad .
that was typical of germanic barbarian tribes when migrated .

You cannot trust the army numbers given in ancient or medieval sources. Sometimes they are more or less accurate, most times not. When the Romans lost a battle, they tended to exaggerate the enemy strength to excuse the result. And if they won they tended to exaggerate enemy strength to make the victory even greater. We can usually go with the rule that ancient and medieval armies in case of battles were more or less of a similar size. Otherwise the battle would have been denied by one of the participants. So maybe 25000 against 32000 or 16000 against 20000. For a game like TW it would be wise to make units of all factions more or less equal. TW is not replaying history, it is to play new history. So the units should not be oriented at special historic events. There should be no unrealistic fantasy units with magical powers, no fiery balls, no wrong weapons, armour and clothes, no unrealistic weapon or unit behaviour. Because all of this has no internal logic. Why would an Egyptian Greek use Roman Military sandals? Unit strength however could have been easily changed by an ingenious general, aka you.

There are no proves to consider inaccurate the ancient fonts or to claim that When Romans lost a battle they exagerated numbers and when they won they reversed, it makes no sense and is also showing a poor knowledge of ancient roman mentality .
Romans were extrely practical and ground rooted people , unlike the greeks they did tend to represent reality and not cheat about it , you can even see it in the art forms where statues represent true portraits and not idealized figures .
That said most of the so called retrovisionisms on battle numbers come from a few germanic sources in the romantic hope to actually change the vision of history incrementing a national pride foundation usual of the early years of the last century , unfortunately some of those theories are still popular among some few people that do not like to believe how large could be barbarian armies and try to rely on the scarce findings of some settlements wich provbes actually nothing especially when dealing with migrating powers . Most of the mosder serious archeologists, historians and interdisciplinary researches just prove that romans did not lie in most cases .. there would have no means , optherwise they woudl have cheated also on the numbers of teutoburgium and Carrae , one of the major losses for the roman armies .
no the usual was the opposite , not always of course , therehad been cases where romans had a numeric superiority and couln't even use it like at Cannae or against Hannibal in general .But that again it was also favoured by playing in homeland , when abroad you have to count on limited men , while the homelaners on almoust continuous supply for the time needed several times superior to the invading army , it allrelies to the ability tounify and mass armies of the locals ...
To think that the germans were just a small fist of irreeducible ( gaullic like ) warriors that fought in little villages of a couple of homes its just a puny little illusion .

[geala]

There had not been only the Cimbri , the teutons , 8 wich were germans anyway ) but many other tribes, whenever the Romans went abroad they went with limited men supply , just as any other nation did .
On the countrary home playing tribes coul dcoun't on the local conscription eventually , something not available to romans abroad or any army abroad .

The only difference in this is when whole populations migrated like the case of Cimbri and teutones, in that case theyhad a massive number by start as because its a total movement of population and not just an army campaigning abroad .
that was typical of germanic barbarian tribes when migrated .



There are no proves to consider inaccurate the ancient fonts or to claim that When Romans lost a battle they exagerated numbers and when they won they reversed, it makes no sense and is also showing a poor knowledge of ancient roman mentality .
Romans were extrely practical and ground rooted people , unlike the greeks they did tend to represent reality and not cheat about it , you can even see it in the art forms where statues represent true portraits and not idealized figures .
That said most of the so called retrovisionisms on battle numbers come from a few germanic sources in the romantic hope to actually change the vision of history incrementing a national pride foundation usual of the early years of the last century , unfortunately some of those theories are still popular among some few people that do not like to believe how large could be barbarian armies and try to rely on the scarce findings of some settlements wich provbes actually nothing especially when dealing with migrating powers . Most of the mosder serious archeologists, historians and interdisciplinary researches just prove that romans did not lie in most cases .. there would have no means , optherwise they woudl have cheated also on the numbers of teutoburgium and Carrae , one of the major losses for the roman armies .
no the usual was the opposite , not always of course , therehad been cases where romans had a numeric superiority and couln't even use it like at Cannae or against Hannibal in general .But that again it was also favoured by playing in homeland , when abroad you have to count on limited men , while the homelaners on almoust continuous supply for the time needed several times superior to the invading army , it allrelies to the ability tounify and mass armies of the locals ...
To think that the germans were just a small fist of irreeducible ( gaullic like ) warriors that fought in little villages of a couple of homes its just a puny little illusion .

At Arausio allegedly about 120.000 Romans (80.000 legionaries) were killed, which would have been the biggest desaster ever for the Romans. In contrast to this it is stated that a good part of the Roman troops were able to flee. If you added this to the reported losses of the other source, the Roman army must have been huger than huge. And then there must have been hundreds of thousands of "barbarians" as adversaries, if we take the reports for true. Plutarch gives numbers for about 300.000 warriors of the Cimbri, Teutones and Ambrones. The whole trek then must have consisted of over a million people. Such a number is highly improbable just from logistical reasons, we see also nowhere such a drastic loss of population in the archaeological findings .All these numbers are believed to be vastly exaggerated by ancient authors.