(Request) Carthaginian Unit Roster

[fernando77]

The last total war game that I had put any considerable amount of time modding was the first Rome Total war, so I am having limited success modding this game especially with the current info and tools available. My request is if anybody could tackle the lack of iberian, celtic, numidian, and italian mercs on the Carthaginian unit roster in both campaign and custom battles. I just find it to be a shame that the game came with no historical Hannibal battles (and many other battles for that matter) and it is impossible to create battles like Trebia with the current Carthaginian Unit roster. Perhaps in time I will be able to mod the units already in game to Carthage but if anybody would like to tackle this issue beforehand it would be greatly appreciated!

[Ahiga]

YAY DOUBLE POST.

[Ahiga]

I'll be doing this once it's possible to edit unit tables and unit ownership. At least with regards to the units available, I won't be able to do Trebia and the like.

My plan is to add/adjust the following units so their roster looks like this. I'm trying to base this on a cursory glance of primary resources like Diodorus Siculus, Livy, and so on, along with cross-referencing to the great mods that came before like Roma Surrectum 2, Europa Barbarorum, and so on. I welcome corrections if someone can provide tangible proof (a primary resource like a passage from Livy or the like). Ethnic nomenclature for Carthage is tricky, but my general assumption is: Libyans adopted the thueros by/after Cannae, and were poor/lower class enough that enstilling the hoplite ethos seems off. So they are suitable to cast as Thuerophoroi. Liby-Phoenicians and Carthaginians were richer enough and more likely city dwellers to be able to afford hoplite panoply and the hoplite ethos (some measure of training to fight in close quarters), so they would probably be the hoplites.

Navy: Streamline into probably three 'marine' types across the various ships (rather than Numidians and Libyans being the marines). Punic Veteran Marines (linothorax, thueros, javelins, sword), Punic Archers (linothorax maybe some without it, sword, bow), and Punic Marines (no armor, thueros, javelin, sword).

Native Military: Available as the natural Punic troops. Not AOR'd to just Africa/Sicily for now.

1) Carthaginian Citizen Hoplites – unarmored (Garrison, not recruitable)

2) Libyan Thuerophoroi Militia - unarmored (tempted to make them replace Citizen hoplites as the garrison later on, if that's possible, as apparently the Punics in the 3rd Punic war were entirely Thuerophoroi)
3) Libyan Thuerophoroi - linothorax
4) Libyan Thuerophoroi (late) – mail

5) Liby-Phoenician Hoplites (early) – unarmored
a. Either remove or make available cheap and early. I'm having trouble with placing hoplites. I know they existed by the first punic war (Citizen phalanx), they seem to have by the second (zama). But it's hard to decide

6) Liby-Phoenician Hoplites (late) - linothorax
7) Carthaginian Hoplites (early) - linothorax
8) Carthaginian Hoplites (late) – mail
9) Sacred Band – muscled cuirass
10) African Pikemen - mail
11) Liby-Phoenician Veterans (swordsmen) - mail

12) Libyan Skirmishers
13) Libyan Peltasts (tempted to simply integrate them into Thuerophoroi, or maybe make them unarmored).

14) Liby-Phoenician Horsemen – Linothorax Aspis
15) Carthaginian Horsemen – Muscled Cuirass OR mail OR linothorax and lance
16) Sacred Band Horsemen – Muscled cuirass and lance (or make unrecruitable and just be part of the General's bodyguard).

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With regards to the mercenaries I had some conumdrums about how to depict them. There are three options:

1) AOR - directly recruited from a building (Rome has Auxilia function this way. Apparently Carthage 'may' be able to do this with some regional mercenaries, not clear)

2) National Mercenaries - available in any province you own as hired mercenaries.

3) Regional Mercenaries - available in specific regions.

It is clear from evidence that Carthage could and would recruit mercenaries from abroad without holding a direct territory in the area or having a general in the field:

1) They are recruited from lands not directly ruled by Carthage.
a. Diodorus Siculus 13.80:
i. Recruitment agents to Iberia, Balearic Islands, Campanians
ii. Summoning allied Moors and Nomads and Numidians
b. Diodorus Siculus 16:73:
i. Iberians, Celts, Ligurians
c. Diodorus Siculus 11.1:
i. Celts and Iberians
d. Diodorus Siculus 19.106:
i. Etruscans, Greeks, Balearics

But it seems that each time Diodorus mentions it the mercenaries are brought to Carthage then shipped out. You also have the recruitment of mercenaries from 'passing through' (Hannibal and the Celts), or from more or less direct recruitment (Barcids in Spain). The solution I'm favoring right now is threefold. AOR (In Africa and Iberia) gives you the best and unlimited troops but requires infastructure. National mercenaries are available anywhere you hold a province, but have a slightly smaller selection and are naturally inexhorbantly expensive (I'll up the initial cost to reflect having to ship them there). Regional mercenaries gain a boost in the types of units available (both for carthage and for everyone), and are their normal expensive selves.

This is what it was looking like thus far:

Punic AOR Troops: Allied-Kingdoms of Numidia and Iberia.

1) Africa:
a. Numidian Nobles
b. Numidian Horsemen
c. Numidian Javelinmen
d. Numidian Spearmen
2) Iberia:
a. Iberian Scutarii
b. Iberian Scutarii Spearmen
c. Iberian Caetratii
d. Iberian Slingers
e. Iberian Javelineers
f. Iberian Spearmen(?)
g. Iberian Cavalry
h. Iberian Scutarii Cavalry
i. (Possibly) Iberian Noble Cavalry
j. (Possibly) Iberian Noble Fighters

Punic National Mercenaries:

1) Balearic Slingers
2) Numidian Horsemen
3) Numidian Javelinmen
4) Iberian Scutarii
5) Iberian Caetratii
6) Iberian Cavalry & Iberian Scutarii Cavalry
7) Celtic Warriors
8) Celtic Skirmishers
9) Celtic Light Horse
10) Italiotai Cavalry
11) Italiotai Swordsmen
12) Italiotai Peltasts (?)

Punic Regional mercenaries would be the existing selections in the West Mediterranean with the introduction of some higher grade troops. You'd be able to access medium/heavy Celtic horse and foot (Caesar recruited gallic cavalry after all, and they were not presumably just light), Italian swordsmen and perhaps "Peltasts" (new unit, unarmored Oscani javelinmen with helmets and thueros), possibly the higher grade of Iberians (Scutari foot and cavalry), and so on.

It may also make sense to restrict or outright anull any cavalry from the national mercenaries given the difficulty of shipping horses across the sea. I have to check if Diodorus suggests any of the non African mercenaries shipped to Carthage were horsemen - if they were it might justify keeping them, if they weren't it may support making such cavalry mercs only available as regionals.

[fernando77]

Well, that is quite the response! I too was hoping for a fix for the ridiculous libyan marines in the Carthaginian navy, but I do find that the current Carthaginian hoplites are a nice marine unit to have, at least for now. With regards to the native roster I find that the current Libyan infantry are at the very least suitable to being the infantry that Hannibal used at Cannae and I think I remember reading that they had adopted the thueros somewhere during the Hannibal campaign but definitely by Cannae and that they certainly had mail-armor by then.The entire unit roster you listed is grand and definitely accurate, I do recall however, that the sacred band was never a cavalry unit and making it into a noble citizen unit might be best and that is what CA has done this time around. Should you go this route I would suggest making that cavalry unit recruit-able and have the generals bodyguard as being a completely separate unit. If it were possible I would also suggest adding a unit of Bruttians to the Italian AOR roster as they were present in the Battle of Zama and were seen as a veteran unit of Hannibals(I believe RS2 has them). With regards to the Iberians, what do you see as being the difference between Iberian Scutarii spearman and Iberian Spearman? I would agree with you that shipping horseman mercs is not really feasible at this time other than the occasional numidian unit, so I would lean towards making all of them as only recruit-able in their region.

[Ahiga]

Any historical references (or secondary depictions, I guess are welcome too) would be appreciated. I know in the Greco-Persian Wars the Phoenician Marines had rimless round shields, javelins, linen corselets and swords (and greek esque helmets). So it seems like an aspis or a thureos works. What might be the best option would be to start off with aspises and have the higher end ships be thureos. With regards to the Libyans like you said what seems to be a consensus is that by the 2nd punic war they had scutums - otherwise changing from aspis to scutum (after looting the Romans) would have been a rather difficult change. Personally I like thureophoroi a lot and hoplites a lot, but right now hoplites are borked ingame so I am a bit more biased towards greater presence of thureophoroi.

It might be a good solution much later on when the code is familiar to have hoplites be the exclusive "native" heavy infantry at the start of the campaign and gradually introduce (and even allow, as I believe it's possible, direct upgrading of hoplites into Thureophoroi) thureophoroi until hoplites are removed(?). But that's a bit complicated of a solution for now. Thus in the short term I'm partial to the above, which is more or less the EB system - Libyan heavy infantry are thureophoroi (Unarmored, armored, and then mail clad), Liby-Phoenicians (both half-breeds as well as affluent Libyans or poorer Phoenicians) are the hoplites. In theory there probably shouldn't be any Carthaginian (Punic-exclusive) hoplites save for the Sacred band. So it might be best to make it just 2-3 hoplite units + the sacred band, the former being Liby-Phoenicians (linothorax and then mail, and possibly an unarmored version that you can recruit).

For the cavalry I am balancing my want of more cavalry (Egypt gets something like 4 native cavalry, Carthage gets 2) with what seems to generally be the narrow variety of Punic cavalry in mods: Liby-Phoenicians, Phoenicians/Citizens, and then some sort of elite corps. I'll probably do that noble business, then.

While I agree with you in wanting to see the various Italic peoples in their own units, until we get textures there wouldn't really be any distinction in appearance for the most part. So I am treating Italiotai as a lump sum of Bruttians, Campanians, Samnites, anyone in South Italy who sided with Hannibal.

You can see all the Iberian unit cards here: http://imgur.com/a/u4INB

Unfortunately it didn't save the file names, but http://i.imgur.com/VEQhe3I.png is Iberian spearmen, http://i.imgur.com/V7JP8m6.png is Iberian tribesmen. Basically for melee units there are Iberian tribesmen, Iberian spearmen, Iberian swordsmen (Caetrati), Iberian scutari, Iberian Scutari Spearmen, veteran shield warriors (armored caetrati), noble fighters (mail), lustani nobles (mail), guerilla warriors, Edetani nobles (mail), then various cavalry and various skirmishers/missile.


With the mercenaries my impression is that you tend to have two types of mercenaries: the well trained Condottieri (Mamertines, Xanthippus, ect.) and the impoverished but stoic warriors (balearics, Celts, ect.). The former being the prerogative of the 'civilized', the latter the domain of the 'barbarians'. Meaning whereas the former could be well off professional soldiers the latter was more likely young impoverished men with great skills but poor panoply - not a land owning Iberian or Gallic aristocrat. So I'm thinking the national mercenaries should be the lower end of things (Not well armored, with the exception of the Italics) to reflect sending the recruitment envoy over, while the regional mercenaries would be higher quality (to reflect them being allies or vassals or the like).

[Grazgul]

Ahiga are you confident on playing with the unit files?

I've got a similar plan for Greece, perhaps we should team up

[Ahiga]

Grazgul - I'll be learning Rome 2 like all of us, and my last modding was from back in Napoleon and Empire (I switched to Mount and Blade Warband since then, returning back now). But I am familiar enough, or should be when the right files emerge.

What was your plans for Greece? I was going to see to giving a single general "National mercenary" selection for all Hellenistic powers (Thueros, Hoplite, peltast, tarantines, that sort), then adding in stuff specific to their regionality or personality (Galatians for the Ptolemies, Iranians for the Seleucids, ect.)

[Biggus Splenus]

OH GOD! Please, no more pikemen in the Carthaginian forces! The concept of it originated in Duncan Head's book, but he was definitely mislead. There is no evidence of these "African Pikemen".

[Grazgul]

The stuff I'm hoping to do first up is expand a small amount on their roster as their army is very linear.

Stage #1

Create another type of sword infantry, "Xiphos Infantry", which was the Greek leaf sword. They would be fairly unremarkable swordsmen.

2 more Auxillary Units - Primarily some kind of melee hillsmen (axe) and some kind of 'eastern' Horseback Archer. I think these would be better in the advanced stages to give the Greeks some much needed diversity.

Stage #2 Much more abitious and zero idea if it can be done until the mod tools get updated => I would like to merge Athens & Sparta into it's own faction eventually.

The main reasons are to give them a little bit more world wide power and to make them a little more apatizing

The army would be Hipolites as general infantry and the Spartans as a more elite soldier type. This would allow Spartans to have a boosted stats vs sword infantry.

[Biggus Splenus]

Create another type of sword infantry, "Xiphos Infantry", which was the Greek leaf sword. They would be fairly unremarkable swordsmen.

I wouldn't recommend that. It's like calling the Romans "Gladius Hispaniensis Legionaries". Too specific, and it's impossible that all soldiers in the unit would be using the exact same sword (maybe not impossible, but extremely unlikely). You'd be better off calling them "Machaira Infantry", which is Greek for just a general sword.

Hope that helped.

tage #2 Much more abitious and zero idea if it can be done until the mod tools get updated => I would like to merge Athens & Sparta into it's own faction eventually.

I'd also advise against that, because I can't stress enough how obsessed the Hellenes were with self independence. Telling a contemporary Spartan that you were merging his nation with Athens would be the death of you.

[Grazgul]

I'd also advise against that, because I can't stress enough how obsessed the Hellenes were with self independence. Telling a contemporary Spartan that you were merging his nation with Athens would be the death of you.

Perhaps merging was the wrong word

I meant more from a game-play point of View. Athens and Sparta both considered themselves part of Greece as a nation, but like you said, both were extremely independent, . Sparta was a pretty patriotic City-State, they lent their army to defend Greece fairly freely. I felt it's believable that Sparta would happily lend their armies to a Greece Coalition so long as they were left alone.

Keeping them separate would fall into the faction traits. Maybe using a multiplier for income/Corruption to represent that it takes a bit of work to get the a bunch of City-States to do anything together. Higher Unit recruitment costs and lower mercenary upkeep feels right too.

Sparta & Athens both used by a faction would solve some issues:
The Sparta trade problem (they don't have a port!)
More infantry choices for the Greeks - In particular some elite units, which most of the other factions have.
Less Mainstream spartan units - there was never a lot to go around compared to other forces


As for the Greek Sword, that's a good point. I'm not %100 sure on Ancient Greece but I though a Xiphos was basically a generic term for their leaf swords. A comparison would be short-sword infantry. Athens also produced these weapons in bulk for the Hipolites. Seems like I've misstepped though, thanks for pointing that one out!

[Master.Mind]

For the cavalry I am balancing my want of more cavalry (Egypt gets something like 4 native cavalry, Carthage gets 2) with what seems to generally be the narrow variety of Punic cavalry in mods: Liby-Phoenicians, Phoenicians/Citizens, and then some sort of elite corps. I'll probably do that noble business, then.

Will you do the Sacred Band of Astarte as your elite corps? I think the narrow variety is somewhat justified by the fact that Carthage can also use Iberian heavy cavalry or Numidians.

[fernando77]

Will you do the Sacred Band of Astarte as your elite corps? I think the narrow variety is somewhat justified by the fact that Carthage can also use Iberian heavy cavalry or Numidians.

I did enjoy that unit in Roma Surrectum 2, especially after I remodeled it to have this great metal body cuirass. I do think that Carthage should have at least one more unit of liby-phoenician/citizen cavalry to go along with their AOR units so that there is some form of cavalry for Carthage in the beginning of the game.

[Ahiga]

Probably, I'm flexible with that since as you say Carthage can field Iberian and Numidian (and soon enough better Gallic and Italic) cavalry. I was reinforced in my belief of a three pronged (AOR, national merc and regional merc) approach when I remembered the bonuses/penalties to recruitment of mercenaries or non mercenaries depending on your family choice.

Since it is apparently possible to edit units now, I'll be getting on this post haste.

[Ahiga]

So what is the suggestion? Liby-Phoenician cavalry with aspis and short spear and Carthaginian Nobles with muscled cuirass and long lance are certain.

Would the Carthaginians have an unarmored cavalryman with short spear and aspis (or just short spear)? Or maybe some intermediate mail and scale clad cavalryman? Nomenclature can be tricky for the Carthaginians - as to who were Libyans, who were Liby-Phoenicians, who were Carthaginians. So allow for some flexibility in this - Libyan Thureophoroi might include Liby-Poenis or Punics. There's also the possibility of having another linothorax clad horseman who is still 'lighter' than the Liby-Poeni (Egypt has that approach).

Also work has begun. I will be ideally giving a unique color entry to every individual unit (so for instance a Libyan Skirmisher will be red, white, and a brownish shade, while a Libyan thureophoroi might be red, white, and blue, ect.). But Libyan Light Thureophoroi, Libyan Thureophoroi and Libyan Thorakitai included. Thorakitai are based off the accounts of Libyans equipped from Roman equipment. So it's a mix of "punic" mail, scale hauberks, Roman mail, and the Roman scutums. Ideally later on I'll retexture the Roman shields to be less identifiably Roman.

[fernando77]

I would think any Liby-phoenican cavalry would be equipped with the linthorax and aspis as they were hellenized cavalrymen, also the muscle cuirass I added to the Sacred band of Astarte was just a preference and I have no historical info to back that up although you would think that any Carthaginian Noble would be able to afford the armor. If you wanted to go with 3 cavalry units for Carthage's home region then I would add a Carthaginian citizen cavalry with no armor, a spear, and a kopis/falcata. Those units look amazing by the way and those thureophoroi really remind me of the units from EB which I loved to include in my armies. The Thorakitai honestly look a bit of what I envisioned to be Hannibal's Libyan Veterans that he used to great effect in Cannae and the Roman Scutum is actually kind of a nice touch. Nicely done so far, I admire the work you've done with those in such little time.

[Biggus Splenus]

Very nice I'll be watching this space

[Murfmurf]

Great stuff! Was thinking of modding my own adjusted Carthaginian roster but now it seems I don't have to! Though if you want a hand at all, just ask.

One thing that gets me, though relatively minor, is the choice of "barbarian" looking mail for the Punic troops. Ie, the way the shoulder elements join and point downwards rather than the Roman looking mail which is more squared off. I don't know the technical terms so I hope this is making sense! The picture below gives a better idea of what I mean:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpos...5/319x425.aspx

If this could be changed it'd be great!

But +rep for the work you've done so far

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

I clearly support to transfer the AoR System from the Rome faction to Carthage. Even if they were called mercenaries by the romans, the carthaginian foreign troops were in many ways the same than auxillary units. The only difference is the possibility to gain the citizenships as an auxillary soldier, but to be honest that was much later when the citizenship was no longer exclusiv. In the punic wars, citizenships was limited to people within a city like Carthage or Athen, Corinth and even romans citizenship was limited central italy. In fact the carthaginian didn't gave their Mercs citizenship, but that is due the point that carthage had only indirect control over the most parts of their influence sphere. The maps on wiki etc. which show entire southern spain under carthaginian control are missleading. There is no archaeological evidence that they ever hold longer terretories north of Carthago Nova and besides some coast cities, they control was due clientel states.

The so called Mercs were in the end gifts and allied troops by Hannibal. The one numidian Tribe sent warriors because Hannibal gave his Sister to their King, some Iberian tribes did the same because Hannibal married a Iberian Princess. These contracts were very personal affairs and not really a mercenary relationship. These foreign soldiers had a connection to carthage or the individual generals.

I am against keeping them Mercs, because it is bad for the Gameplay. In the end no one is using mercs over longer time, because they are overly expansive. That is why it needs to be and AoR System. And i wouldn't limited it to African, Spain and Gaul Mercs. I would suggest to copy the entire Roman AoR System and just recolour their units to Carthage colours.

[Ahiga]

I clearly support to transfer the AoR System from the Rome faction to Carthage. Even if they were called mercenaries by the romans, the carthaginian foreign troops were in many ways the same than auxillary units. The only difference is the possibility to gain the citizenships as an auxillary soldier, but to be honest that was much later when the citizenship was no longer exclusiv. In the punic wars, citizenships was limited to people within a city like Carthage or Athen, Corinth and even romans citizenship was limited central italy. In fact the carthaginian didn't gave their Mercs citizenship, but that is due the point that carthage had only indirect control over the most parts of their influence sphere. The maps on wiki etc. which show entire southern spain under carthaginian control are missleading. There is no archaeological evidence that they ever hold longer terretories north of Carthago Nova and besides some coast cities, they control was due clientel states.

The so called Mercs were in the end gifts and allied troops by Hannibal. The one numidian Tribe sent warriors because Hannibal gave his Sister to their King, some Iberian tribes did the same because Hannibal married a Iberian Princess. These contracts were very personal affairs and not really a mercenary relationship. These foreign soldiers had a connection to carthage or the individual generals.

I am against keeping them Mercs, because it is bad for the Gameplay. In the end no one is using mercs over longer time, because they are overly expansive. That is why it needs to be and AoR System. And i wouldn't limited it to African, Spain and Gaul Mercs. I would suggest to copy the entire Roman AoR System and just recolour their units to Carthage colours.

That's a very good idea Marcus, and I think in the long term I'd definitely like to see it - perhaps applied to all factions, even. Right now it seems the civilized folks (At least Egypt and Carthage and Rome, so presumably Hellenes and Romans) have an Auxilia Barracks and a regular barracks. The 'problem' being the former seems to be more about ranged units than foreign auxilia sometimes - I think it was my standard barracks that gave me Nubian Spearmen and Karian Axemen. That'd require changing the recruitment for all factions - not as difficult as it sounds but still a bit of a toughie. Then again I think I could literally export the TSV table, change every (except for Roman Auxilia) entry in the auxilia/2nd barracks to the first, and that in theory would suffice. I was originally intending it for just Africa and Iberia (given both areas are where you had that interweaving of local nobility and Punic nobility), but there's no reason to lock the campaign to a static, intermediate Punic war situation - judging from Hannibal's relationship (and reading some Hamiclar guy after the 2nd Punic war stayed and fought with the Po Celts) with the Celts and Italians had he been successful you could have seen similar circumstances elsewhere.

I am still inclined to keep (and expand) mercenaries, however - Carthage's familial and factional bonuses are set up with regards to them and it does depict the true use of mercenaries (as opposed to the client/ally relationships you illustrated) by Carthage in the 5th through 3rd century. I can adjust the costs though I do like how expensive they are - really makes me question using them as Egypt. But the system I am partial to is a case of quality (in terms of units available, not stats) and cost:

AOR troops are the 'cheapest' and have the best options, but require infrastructure and owning the territory. So for instance Iberian nobles (mail clad cavalry), unlimited Scutarii, Numidian Nobles.

Regional Mercenaries have better troops available than national mercenaries but equal/less better troops than AOR (Scutarii cavalry, some kind of medium/heavy Gallic cavalry, ect.)

"National mercenaries" are available anywhere but the most limited in unit types - pretty much just 1-2 iconic troops of the nationality. So Caetrati/Scutarii, Numidian Cavalry/Numidian Infantry, Gallic Warriors, maybe some kind of Italic classic Oscan unit (no armor but helmets, scutum, javelins, spear).


gustave: Thanks man, I was thinking to myself how great your guys' textures and models are when limited by the age of MTWII - can't imagine the crazy cool stuff you guys will make with Rome 2! I'll have to look at how texture files work but if you're game that would be great to have.