German Roster
I played a bit of the Suebi campaign on hard and want to touch on a few things in regards to the germanic sword units. Firstly I noticed that you can recruit sword units very early, and this shouldn't be the case. Swords were incredibly rare during this time period in Germania. They used bog-iron which is vastly inferior to that which the Celts and Romans used. The focus for Germanics early should be spear units. I'll list sources below as to why, and continue here with a possible solution. (1) You could make sword units come in a later building, implying that as time went on more units were equipped with advanced gear like mail, metal helmets, swords, and axes. (2) Another solution may be to lay the focus on spear units early with building selection. Unless I'm mistaken, I only got advanced spear units from a shrine to Odin. Perhaps the early barracks could have professional spearmen instead of the swordsmen. (3) Increase the cost and upkeep of sword units, to identify them as the higher strata of society. One of those, I think, would bring that campaign in line better.
It is common misconception that the Germanics were axe-or-sword wielding at this time. The Frameae, "shot spear" was the most common weapon, with a narrow and small iron head. "... iron is not plentiful among them, as may be gathered from the style of their weapons. Few have swords or the longer kind of lance: they carry short spears, in their language "frameae," with a narrow and small iron head, so sharp and so handy in use that they fight with the same weapon, as circumstances demand, both at close quarters and at distance."
-- Tacitus, "Germania" pp. 273.
At the Battle of Vercellae we are told, "Their [Cimbri and Teutones] cavalry wore lofty plumes on helmets grotesquely shaped like animal heads. Their breastplates were of iron and they carried flashing white shields, two javelins each and heavy swords for hand-to-hand fighting."
-- John Warry, "The Military Achievements of Gaius Marius," in Warfare in the Classical World, (London: Oklahoma University Press, 1995) pp. 132.
Plutarch reaffirms the above.
-- Plutarch, John Langhorne, William Langhorne, ed., Plutarch's Lives, (Baltimore: William and Joseph Neal, 1834), Google eBook pp. 299.
"So valuable were they [swords] to their owners that they probably consigned to burials and votive deposits much less commonly than other weapons."
-- Malcom Todd, The Early Germans, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), Google eBooks, pp. 36.
The Germanic armies of our time frame were largely equipped with javelins, spears, and shields. Swords were rare amongst all of the tribes. Some historians (myself included) think it's probable that the Germanic tribes acquired many of the items that were made of iron from the Gauls, and later Romans, with their battles involving the two. "In the well excavated deposit at Esjbol North in Jutland, an unusually homogenous find, there were 60 swords, 60 belts, 62 knives, as against 200 javelins, 190 spears and 160 shields. This find dates from the second to fourth century, illustrating even then that swords and axes were rarely present in Germania."
-- Malcom Todd (Ibid., pp. 42)
Tacitus tells us, "They wear no outer clothing, or at most a light cloak. Few have breast-plates: scarcely one or two at most have metal or hide helmets."
-- Tacitus, "Germania," pp. 273.
The average soldier wore a simple tunic with pants. Their advanced equipment like swords, helmets, and armor, came primarily from looting, although the acquisition of these items was still a rarity. Much of this looted equipment went to the grizzled veterans and higher trained troops.
I have a B.S. in History, and this was part of my thesis. If you need more sources, I can probably procure some secondary, but these should suffice for my point.
EDIT: Apologies if this was double posted. I see a second thread in the sub-forum, not sure if it's my browser.
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Originally Posted by Augustusng
