Peltasts and Thureophoroi AI recruitment

[Balbor]

The more I read up on the roles of Peltasts and Thureophoroi it's clear the current AI recruitment option theses units and others that did similar roles in a little inadequate. They shouldn't be classed recruite as infantry_missile or infantry_melee and as not all of the are armed with spear infantry_spear is also unsuitable. The lighter Peltasts which evolved as the Thureophoroi replace their role would of been more like Psiloi, and the heavier, mail wearing Thureophoroi would of been heavy enough to be infantry_spear.

This is about AI revruitment. The AI shouldn't be recruiting peltist at the expense of Psiloi, especially Creten Archers, and equally it's shouldn't be recruiting Thureophoroi when it should be recruiting Hoplits.

Adding a new unit key for infantry_light should help with the ai's recruitment of these types of units.

Any thoughts on how historically accurate this would be?

[Roach]

I think this is a great way to tackle the problem.

On the one hand you have the true skirmishers, who rely on bows, slings or javelins but get destroyed in melee by everything. On the other hand you have the true melee line infantry, who carry good shields and spears and usually wear solid armour.

These intermediary dual-use troops do skirmish but are capable of destroying true skirmish troops in melee and can be used in melee for flanking attacks though they will lose to any true line infantry in extended combat. The peltasts carry wicker shields which are pretty terrible in melee. The light troops who carry a thureos are generally more inclined to get into melee. The weapon that defines these dual-use troops best is the throwing spear or longche, which is only as tall as the wielder and is weighted to be thrown but is solid enough to be useful in melee as a spear. This kind of weapon is found in many different cultures. I'm not sure whether the unarmoured regular spear wielding thureos troops should be put into this category as well or be counted as line troops.

Exactly how much these were actually used varied historically. Most of the big battles focused on the heavy infantry, but warfare included a lot of skirmishing in many areas. The big armies of the Seleucids only needed enough long range skirmishers to keep enemy skirmishers from picking away at their pikemen, for example. Other cultures focused much more on use of light infantry in warfare and here these intermediary units would be welcome part of any army.

So yes, the use of these troops is distinct both from the true light infantry as well as the heavy infantry, so a new key would in my opinion be quite historical.

[Balbor]

Were all peltasts mercenaries?

[Roach]

No, but it varied a lot by region. Take Greece - in Greece proper there was not a large supply of javelin troops historically, and so Thracian peltasts (these are the skirmisher types) were very common mercenaries (as were Cretan archers, etc).

Go farther north to the Aetolian League or Epirus and you have factions that had a local supply of these troops and would instead have spent their cash on hiring mercenary line infantry.