Medieval Kingdoms Total War: "Byzantine Empire" HIGH and LATE ERA units

[AnthoniusII]

Sure. Not that we'll forbid you or anyone with a good well-founded argument.
Now, Ltd. is the one who handles the Rhomaioi roster, so the final say is on him - but I'd like to have some comments.

Akritai - Do you think Peltastoi is a more apt naming for Javelin units? If there can be an unit bearing the name of Akritai, what kind of unit that can represent them the best? Can it be multiple units, in a set, that have a certain unique way of recruiting perhaps?

Trebizond - Your comment implies that Trebizond veers quite far from Komnenian ERE. Can you enlighten me? Genuinely curious. Because you said the late are Trebizondian than Roman. So Trebizond culturally isn't purely Rhomaion anymore in the Late era?

Late-era units - Certainly, this is a Sandbox game, and a good player should be able to keep the Empire strong until the late era. For "What-if" hypothetical look of a not-bankrupt Empire, do you think its acceptable? Should it preserves a good portion of Traditional Rhomaioi look, a more Western European slant, or even a little Turkish influence, and how much?

Stratiotae - Interesting. Is the later Albanian Stradioti a successor of them, copy of them, or just taking the name without taking the fighting style and equipment?

As I understand it, ERE also very big on Archaism, calling many things as if its from the Classical era. So it also extends to their own pictorial depictions as some sort of "idealized" form of themselves? It is totally understandable that the Emperor would equip himself with the best Italian armour money can buy.

Speaking about Tzakones, I happened to be the naval unit designer of all factions - Only Palaiologian Nicaea employs Tzakones correct? In my plan, I give Epirus and Trebizond generic Rhomaioi Heavy Marines for this role. But were they the regular heavy marines of the Palaiologian Navy, or just a special elite guard? As in, should the Tzakones replaces the Rhomaioi Heavy Marines entirely in Niceaean Roster, or only added on top of it as a limited special version?

If Trebizond and Epirus have their own unique marines, please do tell.

The Tsardom TW for M2 depict them armed with maces, and wearing sky-blue surcoats with lions. Is this accurate? Also, is the star and crescent have certain connection and meaning to them? It does featured often in Geraki Frescoes.

Did Cretan Guards existed in the timeframe of this mod?

Peltastae was a antiquity name of the javelinmen in the revival of Clasicism durring the Mecadonian Dynasty (from Leon VI the Wise to Psellos).
Psiloi or accontistae (if psiloi name will be given to slingers) is more accurate this era.
Here is an Acritas (painting following the Church freskos made by Mr Sourtelis

Nottice how heavily armored he is. Your mod Dynatoi is closest to Acritas (that was a legend of 10th century) but the name that was most commonly used for those rich and powerfull landowners that had small ditattcments of armed squires was pronoiarii (gr: Προνιαριοι) as Pronoiae were the name of those lands.
After 12th century those men -after the direct influence of both Komnenean Dynasty and later the Latinocratia (the fall of the empire after the 4th crusade) looked more and more westerners BUT with many Turkic influenes.
Undouptly THEY NEVER LOOKED LIKE THEIR COUNTERPARTS OF 10TH CENTURY:


Yes Stratioti is the Italian (mostly venetian) version of the term Stratiotae.
In 12th century Stratiotae looked like him :

Ignore the shiled insignia.
Or like him:

In the early palaiologian dynasty the armors still looked a bit eastern thanks to Turkic and Steppe influences

But in 14th century were mostly lightly armored with light chain mails at best.

This consept covers the heavy cavalry and infantry alike.
But more closest to Emperor guards had also balkan influences:

Nottive th epatrial plate arm armor (italian influence) the curved sword (turkic influence) the square shiled (balkan infulence)
His arrmor is padded armor above heavy chain mail.
Finally Tzakones.

Tzakones were all kind of units.
Here they are as heavy cavalry (nottice the Argilic Sun as their insignia). They also served as Palace guards and Marines.



Roman light cavalry was actually un armored

Later this consept with some armor parts were the 15th century Stratioti.

[Wallachian]

To help out with some of your Roman late units here our old research which determined the current look of the Tzakones in Tsardoms and this includes some conversations that our historian Spyros had with AnthoniusII:

4. Tzakones (gr. Τζάκονες)

(Function: Marines, Guards, Palace Troops)
(Other Names: Lakones)

Michael transplanted families from the Morea and possibly elsewhere to Constantinople and enrolled the men as soldiers in his new fleet. Pachymeres writes the Michael “had great need to settle the city with light armed soldiers, so he had many Lakones, arriving from Morea, settled as natives, distributing places near the city. Bestowing the yearly pay, he also supplied them with many other liberalities, and used them for many things inside and outside Constantinople, for they displayed worthy behavior in the wars”. These Lakones-Tzakones came to Constantinople in late 1261 or early 1962 and supplemented the Gasmouloi who had formed the first military contingents of Michael’s new fleet…Through the 1260s and 1270s the Tzakones, together with the Gasmouloi, formed the basic Byzantine marine forces. In the passage quoted above, Pachymeres calls the Lakones or Laconians, people from the southeastern Morea, around Mystra. He felt their name had been corrupted into Tzakones. When describing the composition of the naval expedition to Thessaly in 1273, Pachymeres writes, “…many others were from the Lakones whom they called Tzakones, corrupting their name, whom the ruler transplanted with their wives and children to Constantinople from the Morea and the western parts, and who were numerous and warlike”. Gregoras, too, paraphrasing Pachymeres, points out the peculiar name of these soldier: “Joining the Gasmouloi, the Lakones, a sea army in arms, coming to the emperor from Peloponnesos, whom the common spoken language called Tzakones”.

The word “Tzakon”, the origin of which is still uncertain, was used during the byzantine era in a number of distinct ways. Of interest to us here are two of these: 1st) it denoted a wide variety of military or paramilitary professions including light-armed soldiers, fortress guards (see below), palace guards and paramilitary police, and 2nd) it was used as an ethnic designation for an indigenous inhabitant of Lakonia in the Pelopon. In the cited passages from Pachymeres and Gregoras, it is used in both of these senses. Michael VIII’s Tzakones (or Lakones) were those men whom he transplanted from the Morea, at first perhaps only from Monemvasia, later from other parts of Morea (these being ethnic Tzakones ), and probably from elsewhere as well to serve as marines, light armed troops to guard the walls of the city, and, as we learn from other sources, even as a division of Palace guards. Although there no need to think that Michael’s Tzakones were exclusively recruited from the population of Lakonia, or even Morea, Pachymeres clearly thought that the majority of these men had come from the eastern Peloponnesos. Thus Michael’s Tzakones were Tzakones by occupation and, at least to some extent, Tzakones by ethnicity.

The Tzakones also served as bodyguards and as another palace guard division and were armed with clubs or cudgels (apelatikia), dressed in sky blue, and wore distinctive breastplates adorned with two white lions face to face embroided on breast and back. As discussed above, the word Tzakon was applied to the light-armed troops recruited by Michael VIII to defend his restored capital and to serve aboard his new fleet. Some of the Soldiers came among the Gasmouloi, others came from Peloponnesos but still, other came from unknown areas outside Constantinople. Michael VIII’s performed a number of tasks: guarding the walls of Constantinople, manning the fleet, and, evidently, serving as palace guards. What made matters confusing was that some but not all of these Tzakones were ethnic Tzakones, that is, native inhabitants of the south-eastern corner of the Morea.

To cut a long story short: Michael made a new contingent of marine troops from transplanted men from Morea, from Gasmouloi and from other citizens of the Empire. These were used to be marines, to guard the walls of Constantinople and to serve also as palace guards. They had nothing to do with the local troops that garrisoned the Late Byzantine Kastra in the provinces under the Tzaousios (or Kastrophylax)

The Dilemma

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

from a conversation between Me and Slayer:

here's a discussion between me and Antonius II:




ME: Antonius, please can you post (or send me) another pic of the 3rd model of Arithmos???:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...60#post9536660 .....i want check something...thanks!!


ANTONIUSII: What's the case?


ME: i want to see how do they look like with the Tzakones, the marins and palace guards. Pseudo-Kodinos says that they wear: "blue klivana (cuirasses), which have on the chest with lions rampart"...what bothers me is if these lions can be painted on top of klivanion (lammelar armour?) (like the one that asked you to show me) or if they wore some kind of kavadion (pourpoint or gambeson) on top of klivanion....or maybe they wore some kind of breastplate (but i don't think that the byzantines had in that age...)... what do you think??


ANTONIUSII: They wore probably a small ritual shield hanging from the neck with some detail like those.... Look at the poto with Justinian at Ravenna.. Something like that, wore the germans on special uniforms in WW2.


ME: do you mean these, that the guards are wearing?: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...avenna_003.jpg , aren't these the Torques??? (worn also be the Gauls in antiquity...), these also apear in the pic with the "Vasilikos Anthropos" of the "Byzantine Armies 886 - 1118" της Osprey: http://imageshack.us/f/232/aa5iw2.jpg/ ....these are mentioned as "neck-chains" and they were given to kandidatoi and spatharokanditatoi (nobility ranks).....like "awards" (insignia)....and in a book i found them as "kandidiatika" .... BUT why Pseudo-Kodinos mentions them as klivana, since they weren't used (neither in the 14th c. nor ever...) like some kind of armour..... (they don't have anything to do with the turanic and the more ancient samnite heart protectors..)...


regarding the Germans: do you mean these??: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0BoO175xie...b81fec565f.jpg

http://www.google.gr/imgres?imgurl=h...ch&um=1&itbs=1

http://www.google.gr/imgres?imgurl=h...w=1920&bih=918

these "gorgets" aren't a bit modern for the byzantines???



he didn't answer me after that....


anyway, what do you think about the Tzakones???

Good question Spyros! This is something I’ve been wondering and trying to figure out for a long time… are the lions on a breastplate of some sort or just painted (or sewn) onto the blue tunic worn over the armor?

I’m not sure what the answer is. My initial thought was that it sounded to me more like the lions were on some piece of armor, i.e. a breastplate. However, after thinking more about it, I am now leaning towards believing that they may have just been on the tunic itself. This would have been cheaper and more practical than adding an additional breastplate over the tunic, which is already over the other armor (klibanion).

I don’t think the ceremonial neck guard thing Anthonius seemed to be talking about is right. I really am not sure though which of the other two choices is correct. I think you could justify either one. If you have a preference, feel free to let me know![/QUOTE]

Pictures

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

STANDARD LEVEL (UG0)

Armour type:

unknown: but there are cuirass (klibania) mentioned...there could be mail armour...generally they were not so heavily armoured because they are marines



Pictures:

we don't have any picture available; the following desciption is from Pseudo-Kodinos: "...next are the ones named Tzakones, carrying maces...they wear (dark) blue cuirasses having embroidered on chest white lions rampart, facing each other; the same in the back...". They also carry shields with the 8-ray "Sun of Leontides/Argead Sun"..

what we don't know, is wether they used breastplate or they just wore a "pourpoint" on top of their cuirasses, in order to embroid the lions on top of the cloth/leather.... beause by that time the byzies didn't have breast-plates so that a lion could be painted; these were bought from Italy in the 15th century....before that, they were using lamellar and scale cuirasses that could not be painted on top...

so there are two options: (warning: the pictures are older than the "Dilemma" mentioned above)

http://www.wappenwiki.org/index.php?...ile:Hafrid.png

HIERARCHY

1st Rank: [one] Stratopedarches ton Tzakonon (Quartermaster of the Tzakones)


2nd Rank: [many] Allagator (commander of the Allagion: our gameplay unit)

<pic>

BANNER/STANDARD

Standard:

Because they mainly come from Peloponnesos, the Tzakones use as their banner the 8-ray "Argead Sun", a ancient Greek symbol (some contemporary writers consider the Tzakones as ethnic (=idololatric) Greeks) of the Temenid Dynasty that ruled Peloponnesos (claming ancestry from as back as Hercules himself; thus naming themselves also as "Heraklids"). A branch of that dynasty is the "Argead House" who created the Kingdom of Macedonia and some of its most important members are Philipp II and Alexander III (the Great).

PS: the 16-ray star of Vergina is of Philipp II himself, not of his kingdom (at least by that time); the same with the 12-ray star of his wife, Queen Olympia...



Standard Bearer:

<pic>

Upgrades

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

<none>

Recruitment Conditions

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. COSTS:
Recruitment Cost: Expensive
Upkeep Cost: Relatively Expensive [one of the main reasons of the minimizing of the navy by Andronikos II]

2. TIMES:
Recruitment Time: 4 turns
Refill Rate: 1 per 8 turns

3. PLACE:
General Area: Coast
Settlement Type: City/Castle
Settl. Requirements: Level 4 (max=1), Level 5 (max=2)

4. BUILDINGS:
Building Required: Dockyard, Imperial Naval Academy [see "Buildings" sector]
Special Building Required: -

5. SIZE:
Unit size:
Maximum Pool Size: 2


**Available only to the Regency and to the Roman Empire**

[You_Guess_Who]

If the Emperor led his fleets, would the Varangian Guard be guarding him at the sea too? Basically, I want for the Emperor to have his own unique guard units if he is deployed as an Admiral instead of a General.

And oh, I am bit careful with Christos Giannopoulos' illustrations. He tend to embellish things to make it cooler.