A few things regarding historical accuracy

[Elianus]

Many thanks for this great mod! It has trully salvaged Rome 2 for me.
Now for the questions:
1. Why include pezhetairoi? As far as I know the term was used to describe the main body of the phalanx (even more so during Alexander's time). I am under the impression that the proper elite phalanx unit for the Antigonids are the hypaspistai peltastai as they have been mentioned to fight both in the macedonian manner and as they are depicted in the mod (basilikoi peltastai). The agema would possibly be the hypaspistai unit included in the mod
2. Why have both sword and spear thyreos/ thorakitai units? A thorakiths was eqquiped with spear, sword and javs.
3. Just how historically accurate are the heavy phalanxes (thorax pikemen) ?
4. Where are the Seleucid ''golden shields''?
5. What is the basis for the badass thorakitai agematos of the Seleucids?
6. After the celtic invasions the macedonian cavalry started using shields. I have also read that the entirety of the elite cav addopted the tarantine style of warfare in Antigonid armies but I am not certain about this one. What's your opinion on this?
7. Shouldn't the Seleucids also have hetaroi armed in the tarantine manner?
8. As far as I know the new thorakiths style never really caught on in Macedon. Should anyone apart from the seleucids and perhaps the ptolemies have access to late romanized infantry(ok, there is also Pontus that really experimented on roman doctrine too)?

[Scaevola]

2. Why have both sword and spear thyreos/ thorakitai units? A thorakiths was eqquiped with spear, sword and javs.

You have to keep in mind that DeI is limited to what CA's engine is capable of. Due to those limitations you cannot have infantry that uses different weapon sets. If you have a look in the game files you can clearly see what I am talking about. You can equip your infantry with a primary weapon set and include abilities, using javelins or pikes for instance. You cannot define different sets in a way that it reflects thorakiths combat style. Modding CA's Warscape means a lot of work arounds.

[Elianus]

I see. However, the units I am talking about are not even identical. The sword thorakitai have more armour, if memory serves. If this is indeed a compromise then perhaps keeping only the spear variant (as that was their main weapon) would be the way to go. This is of course up to the team and not my decision to make. I just think that the only proper sword/large oval shield unit should be the romanized infantry and only for certain hellenistic factions.

[Augustusng]

The answer to question 8 answers some of your other questions I think. Some of those late reform units are not based directly on historical units, but are basically "what if" units - historically plausible units that could have existed if that faction had expanded, but probably did not actually exist.

[Mithias]

Here are my findings as a current PhD students specializing in Hellenistic warfare. DeI is pretty accurate on a variety of levels.
I agree that the elite phalanx in Antigonid armies should not be pezhetairoi. The term was used for the elite during the Philip and Alexander days. The elite phalanx of Macedon should be 'peltast'. They were most likely armed with a shorter sarrisa and a smaller shield than the phalanx proper. Their equipment were lighter than the phalanx proper according to Asclepiodotus, somewhere between the phalanx and skirmishes. Within the peltasts were the agema (royal body guard).
There is evidence for both sword and spear thureophoroi. It is now believed that swordsmanship played a bigger role in Greek warfare than previously thought.
As for the thorakitai, there are only two references to such units, both Polybius, once in the Acahean army and once in the Seleucid. Their equipment unknown. Thorax simply means armour and technically could refer to leather, linen, bronze or chain armour.
Phalanxes were probably lighter that they are depicted in DeI and that the hegemon (front line) might have worn armour but the rear rankers probably not.
There is no reference to a Seleucid infantry Agema (thorakitai agematos), unlike other successor states. There is however a reference of a kings guard named the hypaspists.
As for Tarantines, the elite cavalry surely did not adopt Tarantine tactics, otherwise there would be no need to make mention of these units, distinguishing them from other cavalry during battle. While the Tarantine tactics became very popular. The elites were mostly lancers.
Adoption of the shield was mostly the medium cavalry as depicted in DeI. Hellenistic Elites are almost always depicted without shield. But yes, the Celts were in influence for Greek cavalry shields.

[Elianus]

I remember reading about some passage from Livy saying that the macedonian elites where unaccustomed to close-quarter battle when charged by roman cav. He also mentions Philip V as fighting in the tarantine style. Of course I am anything but certain about this subject. About cav, the seleucids had 3 elite units: the agema (very heavy and composed of Medes), the hetairoi (probably a bit lighter) and the epilektoi(thessalians). I would like to see the inclusion of hetaroi, possibly the aspidophoroi variant as well.

[KAM 2150]

Seleucids had way more cavalry squad then those you proposed, for example Cataphracts were later on the most numerous body of their cavalry. I want to enhance Seleucid cavalry corps for 1.1 version My BA thesis was all about Seleucid cavalry, elephants and scythed chariots.

As for shielded cav, Seleucids never really picked that one up, they were always about shock cavalry tactics. They employed tarantines, but only in small numbers (dozens or few hundreds at max).

As for Hetairoi, by that name only Seleucids should have them, since the regiment name went to them, Macedonians and Ptolemaic rulers used different names for their elite cavalry regiments.

Epilektoi were Thessalian riders from Thessalian colony of Larissa in Seleucid lands. They probably fought in the manner of Hetairoi, but there are no detalis about them except their name.

[ABH2]

I remember reading about some passage from Livy saying that the macedonian elites where unaccustomed to close-quarter battle when charged by roman cav. He also mentions Philip V as fighting in the tarantine style. Of course I am anything but certain about this subject. About cav, the seleucids had 3 elite units: the agema (very heavy and composed of Medes), the hetairoi (probably a bit lighter) and the epilektoi(thessalians). I would like to see the inclusion of hetaroi, possibly the aspidophoroi variant as well.

The Greeks didn't have infantry equipped purely with swords, no. They pretty much all used spears until some of the later Roman copies. But the question becomes whether the Hellenistic and Greek factions really would have adopted Roman arms had they not been defeated by the Romans. It can be argued that the battles lost were failings of leadership and an inability to effectively use their cavalry rather than a failing of the phalanx in its initial purpose.

[KAM 2150]

Well, the most important thing about ancient warfare is that most of things we come up with are based on our imagination. For example, most of greek units are described by a single sentence and many times we do not have even that kind of luxury. Plus many stuff are being based on something we read on the net/heard something and we take it for granted. I learned that hard when I wrote my BA, as it turns out that many stuff that are popular in "historical" mods are pure work of fantasy and sometimes even CA made it better by making it more restricted

[ABH2]

I don't want to give the wrong impression that there is some definitive right answer to a lot of these question. Speculative history is just that.

6. After the celtic invasions the macedonian cavalry started using shields. I have also read that the entirety of the elite cav addopted the tarantine style of warfare in Antigonid armies but I am not certain about this one. What's your opinion on this?

From the reading I've done on the Hellenistic cavalry, I haven't really encountered them universally adopting Tarantine style, but the main difference between them and the older javelin cavalry used by the Greeks seems to have been the large aspis sized shields. But the Seleucids seem to have had a distinguishable cavalry force they called Tarantines which would seem to be reflective of how they fought. The term Tarantine had a more varied usage over time and started to get linked to mercenaries, if I'm not mistaken.

This is a quick little summary of Hellenistic cavalry after Alexander (about a page) that gives a good, if simplified and short description of the equipment and types.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store...3?v=1&bc6104bc

[KAM 2150]

Always remember first rule of historical methodology, historians do not recreate history, they create it, and that is why pretty much all history is very, very speculative

As for Tarantines, based on my research, I am a bit more keen on the side of them being always mercenaries from Tarentum as they always fought in number around 50-200 riders, which is number small enough to pass for them being from Tarentum. Well, at least being them mercenaries from some other mainland Greek state.

One of the most interesting things about Tarentine cav is that they were much different from their depiction in games and mods. During GC timeframe they were spear cavalry famous for charges, not so much for skimishing. Actually, they had one javelin and one long spear, they would thrown their javelin during charge and them during midcharge move the spear from left hand to right hand and storm the gaps caused by javelin volley. Lightly armed, skirmishing Tarantines are from V to early IV century BC.

[Korvyr]

Your intelligence makes my panties drop so hard

[Elianus]

Thank you for your answer. What about the macedonian peltastai, KAM?

[KAM 2150]

Honestly, it is not a subject of my research so far so all I can give you about Macedonian Peltastai are my own observations without broad source material. For me they seem to function as lighter Hypaspistai (who are still debated if they used heavy or light armour only), which means that they were all purpose infantry that was armed and deployed depending on the situtation. Since in this game we can't game multiple weapons for infantry, I think it would be better to leave them as they are, since like Hypaspistai there main job was to protect phalanx or join its ranks. So I think it can stay as it is, Peltastai armed with swords, Hypaspistai with spears.

[Mithias]

I agree with Kam on his observations regarding the Peltast unit being light all purpose infantry. The Tarantines however did originate from Tarentum but later were called Tarantines because of their fighting styles. Tarantines operated in Hellenistic armies well into the 2nd century long after Tarentum was absorbed by Rome. Surely they were no longer strictly from Tarentum. Later Tarantines were divided into 2 separate units according to Arrian (tactica 4. 5-6). "Pure Tarantine" who only preformed skirmish duties and " light Tarantines" who skirmished and then charged as Kam mentioned.