Post your suggestions for new units !

[MeinPanzer]

What is wrong with Osprey books - now that it has been mentioned a few times in this thread - I´ve always thought they were of good enough quality but please enlighten me if I´m mistaken ? Or did you mean you wanted more sources than only Osprey ?

The problem with Osprey books is often one of transparency- most of the time, the books are too short to include extensive citations, and so sometimes some reconstructions or claims, which are often objectionable, cannot be fully investigated. Nicolle's Desert Frontiers title is a prime example of this; his Herodian soldier reconstruction is as fanciful as any vanilla RTW unit.

[Havok.]

I'd prefer:

Dragons
Ogres
....Unicorns.

I personally like the ideas of Trolls singing black metal songs fighting Dragons, empaling Ogres and rapping Unicorns at the Ragnarök.



......lol o_O

[Leviathan DarklyCute]

Ok I have an idea for a unit.
Name: Dio Brando. (chaotic evil)
Battle cry: MUDA DA (useless, as in the foe's attak)
spical attak: ZA WARUDO (The World, an assistant Dio can summon to attak the foe.)
Main attak: Time Stop ( by saying "TOKI YO TOMARE" time stops, and by saying "SOSHITE TOKI GA UGOKI DESU" time moves again.)
Final attak: WRYYYYYYYYYYYY (Dio throw a steamroller on the foe while standing on it, then hit the foe while still on the steamroller shouting "MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA" untill the foe is dead, then Dio finally burst into laughter and screems "WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!"

Oh, and he can also throw knifes.

[Atilius]

EBII :

Name: Numidian reformed infantry (wip)

Factions: Numidia (and Massaesyli if included) with reforms; as local unit at high MIC level for at least Romani and Qarthadast, maybe some hellenistic nations as well

Equipment: rounded scutum, short gladius-like sword hung from baldric, simple helmet of greek or roman types, short spear, maybe javelin, linothorax of leather or chainmail with leather or cloth pteruges, short tunic and trousers, sandals

AoR: Kirtan, Siga, Ippone, Utica, Kart-Hadast, and Adrumento; possibly Lixus and Sala as well

History: based on the Syphax's infantry trained by Scipio's centurion in the Second Punic war

Sources: Osprey MAA 121 Armies of the Carthaginian Wars 265-146 BC by Terence Wise, pg.14, and Osprey MAA 243 Rome's Enemies (5): The Desert Frontier by David Nicolle, plate A1 Livy (XXIV.48)

Here is the reference in its entirety:

And Statorius out of the mass of young men enrolled infantry for the king, organized them almost in the Roman manner, taught them in formation and evolution to follow standards and keep their ranks, and to such an extent accustomed them to fortifying and other regular duties of the soldier that in a short time the king had as much confidence in his infantry as in his cavalry, and in a regular engagement in formal array on level ground he defeated the Carthaginian enemy.

All that tells us is that they were organized "almost" like Romans and that they had at least one success in battle; it tells us nothing about equipment. Livy mentions later that Massanissa brought 6,000 foot to Zama, but it's not clear if these guys were among them.

[Ludens]

What is wrong with Osprey books - now that it has been mentioned a few times in this thread - I´ve always thought they were of good enough quality but please enlighten me if I´m mistaken ? Or did you mean you wanted more sources than only Osprey ?

Also, Osprey are limited by their format. Their goal is to give a quick overview of the subject in a limited number of pages, so there is little space for details or to discuss the uncertainties and contradictions that plague classical military history. In addition, popular history can lag quite a bit behind the real thing.

[Skandinav]

Of course it was only quality as opposed to format or function that I questioned, never should a comparison be made on different terms.
But thank you for some clarification on what was meant ( I have a few Osprey books on my shelves and couldn´t agree more ) as I clearly mistook the resentment, or caution rather, as founded in something less central than the obvious.

[paullus]

Hey MP,

Sorry, I was away for a few days, and having returned, forgot all about this thread. I've generally assumed that Appian made a mistake calling them Galatians. Don't they overlap with the generic "kataphraktoi" in Livy? The contingents of Galatians would have been stationed right next to them in the battle line, so perhaps Appian messed up. I know its usually translated "mail clad" and my interpretation is that its either 1) an error, and should just read "kataphraktoi" or 2) a reference to Galatian cav wearing heavy armor: breastplates, chain mail, and the like. I prefer 1), but I'm not gonna call someone a fool who thinks that we should give greater credence to Appian's wording.

[Pinkkiller]

well...wiki is worse than osprey...sure it gives a better overwiev but since nearly any1 can go and edit it's not too trustworthy...and leviathan..I really hope that wasn't supposed to be serious... and I continue to wonder when the next suggestion for ''blue cetiberian'' will come still confusing me thought

[Mithridates VI Eupator]

Here is the reference in its entirety:

Originally Posted by Titus Livius
And Statorius out of the mass of young men enrolled infantry for the king, organized them almost in the Roman manner, taught them in formation and evolution to follow standards and keep their ranks, and to such an extent accustomed them to fortifying and other regular duties of the soldier that in a short time the king had as much confidence in his infantry as in his cavalry, and in a regular engagement in formal array on level ground he defeated the Carthaginian enemy.

All that tells us is that they were organized "almost" like Romans and that they had at least one success in battle; it tells us nothing about equipment. Livy mentions later that Massanissa brought 6,000 foot to Zama, but it's not clear if these guys were among them.

That Livy states that Statorius "taught them in formation" and "to follow standards and keep their ranks" seems to imply that it was not merely light infantry, but some sort of heavier troops. The fact that the Crathaginians were beaten in a battle "in formal array on level ground" also seems to point to this conclusion.

That they fortified camps etc. also implies that the force was romanized in its tactics and orgainzation.
But to what extent they carried roman-ish equipment can not be derived from the text though. They might as well have carried a spear and aspis, instead of gladius and scutum, however, I would guess that they wore some kind of armour, of a better type that the hardened-leather that, for instance, the mauri wore. Helmets also seem quite likely.

The bottom line being; some form of armoured melee line-infantry (though quite posibly carrying javelins), arranged in, at least to some extent, coherent formations.

[a completely inoffensive name]

No, he's saying that in EBI we had to waste unit slots on using the merc trick to give certain units to certain factions. This saves about 12 units (if I remember correctly - or something like that number). Spendios, our unit hoarder, has recently freed up a further 7, I think.

Foot

I was trying to tally the number of free unit slots so far, in the quote above Foot has given 12 and 7 making 19 new unit slots for 10 new factions so far.

I just going through the EDU and searched for the highest number listed for the unit slots and got to 548. I was confused by this because I thought the max # of unit slots was 500. For some reason I also recall reading somewhere that stated EB uses 460 slots which would make the count 40+12+7=59 new units slots for ten new factions or just under 6 specific units a faction.

Could someone clarify what the max is for the EDU?

[Foot]

500. It has always been 500, and always will be. Do not believe those putrid liars who would tell you otherwise. They lie.

Foot

[Majd il-Romani]

Ok, please don't flame me for this, but,when you guys have released EB2, if there is 1 unit slot left free (i doubt it but still) you guys should put a totally over-the-top unit like Unicorn Cataphracts or Flaming Elephants

*runs away*

[Foot]

There won't be any extra unit slots left.

Foot

[Dumbass]

Ok, please don't flame me for this, but,when you guys have released EB2, if there is 1 unit slot left free (i doubt it but still) you guys should put a totally over-the-top unit like Unicorn Cataphracts or Flaming Elephants

*runs away*

How about Bartix Elephant driven ninja chariot riders? I read that in polybius they were employed by Antiochus at Magnesia, for the paltrysum of 10000000 mnai

[Sarcasm]

Now that we have some serious unit proposals, how about you guys type in some spam?

[a completely inoffensive name]

500. It has always been 500, and always will be. Do not believe those putrid liars who would tell you otherwise. They lie.

Foot

Why are units numbered up to 548 then?

[General Appo]

Now that we have some serious unit proposals, how about you guys type in some spam?

Okay:

An Essay upon Unicorns and their history by General Appo

Chapter 1: Proof of Unicorns existance and history

How about unicorns? I seriously think Unicorns are underrepresentated in modern games, even in ones dealing particulary with supposedly mythological creatures. For example, the computer game Age of Empire: Age of Mythology included many supposedly mythological creatures but left out the unicorns. Some might argue that this is because unicorns had not yet appeared in mainstream mythology, however, many Greek historians wrote of their existence, particulary in the Indus Valley, where images of what might be a unicorn has also appeared on early seals.

By medieval time the unicorn had grown more and more accepted into European mythology, possibly becasue of biblical and ancient sources frequently mentioning it, even though contacts with the Indus Valley where this wonderful creature lived was scarce. Marco Polo himself wrote of what might have been an unicorn, even though some people have claimed he was describing an rhinoceros. Even the great Leonardo Da Vince wrote of the unicorn, and far distant nations such as Denmark used unicorn symbols such as it´s trademark horn.

Now, during ETW timeperiod (1700AD-1800AD) European contact with the Indus Valleys was constantly increasing, as trade posts were set up in India and the nearby area. Surely wealthy Europeans interested in the stories of unicorns would have organised parties to search for these wonderful beasts, and though some claim that this did never occur and that unicorns do not exist, newly found evidence exists that proves the contrary. Just look at this painting (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...PalFarnese.jpg) from 1602, it clearly indicates Europeans had encountered unicorns already at that early age, perhaps brought home from India by such explorers as Vasco Da Gama.

In fact there is some indication that the great Timur the Lame had several unicorns in his entourage. In 1398 Timur invaded India, and he sacked many towns and cities, including the great city of Delhi. During this campaign his army allegedly encountered a small herd of unicorns shortly after crossing the Indus River, and Timur naturally intrigued by these creatures brought several of them with him for the rest of his campaigns. when Timur died the unicorns passed to his third son Miran Sha, who was however killed shortly after at the battle of Sardrud in 1408 by the Kara Koyunlu, a Turkic tribal confederation that ruled much of Armenia and Iraq during this period. Their great general Qara Yusuf was after the battle presented with the unicorns, and he to keept them with him during many campaigns. When Qara Yusuf died the small herd passed to his son Qara Iskander.
However Iskander did not relish the unicorns as much as their previous owners had, and so keept poor watch over them. And so during the Ak Koyunlu invasion around 1420 the unicorns were captured by the Ak Koyunlu, and even though they were ultimately defeated they brought the small herd back to their homeland. The herd long stayed with the Ak Koyunlu and passed on from ruler to ruler, but in 1464 they were hard pressed by the Ottoman Empire, and so requested aid from it´s greatest enemy, the Serene Republic of Venice. In an attempt to gain their good faith the present ruler Uzun Hassan gifted two young unicorns to the Doge of Venice.

As anyone know unicorns seldom mate but live for many hundreds of years, and take a long time to age. This was indeed a wonderful gift, which inly increased the Ak Koyunlu´s outrage when Venice´s aid never materialised. Anyway, the uncorns stayed in Venice for some time, were they were the target of much wonder and affection both from the citizens of Venice and the foreign dignitaries privilieged enough to be allowed to see them. In 1509 though, Venice was crushingly defeated at the battle of Agnadello, by an alliance led by Pope Julius II. Julius had seen the unicorns several years ago in Venice and so demanded them as part of his treaty with Venice. With no choice, Venice ceaded the two still not fully grown unicorns to Julius, who keept them at his court in Rome, where they passed on to several Popes. It was during the reign of Pope Clement VIII that the above posted painting was made, clearly demonstrating the existence of a not fully grown unicorn at Rome at that time. I will explain more tommorow about the nature of unicorns and the conspiracy to keep unicorns a purely mythological creature, but now I must have my beauty-sleep.

Chapter 2: The Nature and later history of Unicorns

Firstly, I do not unerstand why anyone would joke about such a serious matter as unicorns, I strongly believe that unicorns to exist, and I intend to attempt to convince you of it as well. Secondly, why doesn´t that picture prove anything? When someone finds a cavepainting or mosaic from ancient Rome or Greece it is considered important historical material that strongly indicates the existence of whatever the painting or mosaic depicts, why would it not be the same with later work of arts? It´s all part of the conspiracy I intend to reveal, possibly in a later post.

Now, to the nature of unicorns. A unicorns is as far as looks go simply a horse with a horn potruding from it´s forehead, though unicorns do tend to be extraordinarily beautiful creatures, displaying a natural grace and elegance unknown to horses. Unicorns seldom mate, and when they do it takes an extremely long time for the one baby to grow into a mature unicorns, often as long as 300 years. In return, unicorns have a very long lifespan, able to live for as long as 2000 years, and in extreme cases even longer. Though a unicorns can be slain by a human or animal, it is exccedingly rare, both as unicorns have an incredibly ability to quickly heal any wounds inflicted upon them, and because any creature who approaches a unicorn with the intent to hurt it will be overwhelmed by the unicorns beauty, and will be unable to harm such a beautiful creature.

The unicorn is a naturally docile creature, but when its infants are in danger it will drive off the assaulter by attempting to impale the assaulter on its sharp horn. Because of the unicorns impressive speed and agility, it almost always succeed in this task, instantly killing the assaulter. Unicorns are vegetarian creatures, eating only grass and leaves, refusing to even touch a dead animal. Unicorns are also quite intelligent creatures, often succeeding in avoiding traps and galantly passing any test or hinder in its way, though sometimes it makes use of its incredible reaction speed and jumping ability.

The unicorns have lived in the Indus Valley for many millenias, as has already been menioned. There the climate and nature was appropiate to all their needs, and they thrived there, creating several seperate herds of unicorns, each consisting of about 20 unicorns. At most there appears to have been 30 to 40 of these herds in existence, so about 700 unicorns at their peak.
The native inhabitants of the Indus Valley where aware of the unicorns existence, though they did not often show themselves to the inhabitants, being naturally catious. When the inhabitants spoke to outsiders of these creatures they were often thought of as liers, and even when they were believed the creature appeared more as a mystic creature from ancient legends then an actual living animal. During the Mauryan Empire and the rule of the Indo-Greeks, the unicorns went into hiding, and were seldom spotted by any humans except a few natives which had gained their trust. During this time they were pressed to find food without exposing themselves to human eyes, and so fewer and fewer new unicorns were born. The number of unicorns begun to slowly decline, until by around 1000 AD it was down to around 300 specimens. During this longperiod not much is known about the unicorns, but they appear to have retreated to the most seclusive areas of the Indus Valley, where they lived their long lifes in peace. As I have already mentioned, a herd of unicorns was taken by the army of Timur the Lame during his invasion of India in 1398, though it is unclear how the unicorns were captured.

After Timur´s departure the unicorns were pressed even harder, as the population became ever greater, and no new unicorns (expect the ones taken by Timur´s army) had been borned for over a millenia. The very last unicorns in the Indus Valley is supposed to have perished sometime during the early 19th century. The unicorns take by Timur the Lame however persisted in Rome, but there conditions were about to change dramatically.

During the reign of Pope Pius VI (1775-99) a member of the Freemasons society allegedly stole the two unicorns and brought them to a Freemason lodge in Bretagne, likely to study the nature of these incredible creatures, something the Popes would never allow them to do. Pius does not seem to have cared much for the theft, but his succesor Leo XII certainly did. During his reign an extensive search for the unicorns was begun, and many Freemasons were hunted down and persecuted, but the unicorns were not found, for under great pressure from the Pope´s lackeys the unicorns had been taken to America, and the thriving city of Philadelphia. What exactly happened next I will hopefully explain in an later post, but now I´m afraid I must... do something else. Till next time.


Chapter 3: The late history of the Unicorns

Anyway, I´m tired so I´ll just give a short account of what happened after the unicorns had been taken to Philadelphia. the Freemasons were curious as to nature of the unicorns long life-span, and so did some experiments. However the unicorns were stolen by Darwin´s lackeys who tried to drown them in the Hudson River but fled when one of them was shoot by an rabbit that accidentally triggered an abondonded rifle left there by American Vice President William A. Wheeler, 19th Vice President of the United States of America, District Attorney for Franklin County, Attendant to the University of Vermont and reknown for his honesty, for reasons better left untold of, at least in this post.

Anyway, the unicorns fleed to Mexico by train where they took up living around the Sad Hill Cemetery living of rotten oranges left there by various friars. After many decades they were found by the CIA who are now making horrible evil terribly experiments on them to determine the truth of their origins.
General Appo. 27th May, 2008.

[Spendios]

Why are units numbered up to 548 then?

Maybe because some numbers are not used ?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Maybe because some numbers are not used ?

Can someone give me an accurate number of how many unit slots are actually used?

[Tellos Athenaios]

O(1).

[Spendios]

Can someone give me an accurate number of how many unit slots are actually used?

Why don't you count them in the EDU instead ? Too lazy ?

[General Appo]

No, we just expect you to do it for us. After all, the customer is always right... even when he doesn´t pay jack shit.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Why don't you count them in the EDU instead ? Too lazy ?

Sorry if I thought that maybe an EB member or someone who made an unofficial mod had written down or memorized the amount of unit slots used which number above 400 and would take over an hour maybe two to fully count one by one. Prick.

[Hax]

Dude, go out, grab a drink, chill out.

[abou]

Sorry if I thought that maybe an EB member or someone who made an unofficial mod had written down or memorized the amount of unit slots used which number above 400 and would take over an hour maybe two to fully count one by one. Prick.

You know, considering that we're all busy and that some things are forgotten, it might not have hurt for you to actually go and look it up yourself. Furthermore, you know that Spendios had a jocular nature to his post.

And then to go and call an EB team member a prick? If you want to go searching for a ban, I suggest you continue acting the way you have.

[paullus]

circa 450 maybe. eb2 will have all 500 eventually.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I stick to O(1). I THINK I might go as far as to say Ω(1), but if not perhaps Θ(1) is more likely. Yet there is no basis for such an estimate, therefore I stick to what I feel safe with, which is O(1).

[lobf]

You know, considering that we're all busy and that some things are forgotten, it might not have hurt for you to actually go and look it up yourself. Furthermore, you know that Spendios had a jocular nature to his post.

And then to go and call an EB team member a prick? If you want to go searching for a ban, I suggest you continue acting the way you have.

That's one of those jokes that's not really a joke. It's just kind of sneering and insulting. With a joke-ish tone. Good example for everyone else.

[a completely inoffensive name]

You know, considering that we're all busy and that some things are forgotten, it might not have hurt for you to actually go and look it up yourself. Furthermore, you know that Spendios had a jocular nature to his post.

And then to go and call an EB team member a prick? If you want to go searching for a ban, I suggest you continue acting the way you have.

I have already said I attempted to count the units in the EDU but the numbering for them goes all the way up to 548 so I was confused about how many the EDU could hold. After sorting out my confusion on the number of unit slots the game can hold, the response to my question "can anyone tell me what the real number is, seeing as how the numbering for them is all messed up." was "Why don't you go to the EDU and actually look?" I just told everyone last page I counted! And what exactly makes it "jocular"? The fact it had a juggling smiley? Because that it makes it so easy to see that when he says "Are you just too lazy to actually do anything yourself?" he was kidding.

I would be completely happy if I had gotten a straight answer saying "No, we don't have that exact information ready right now, you will have to ask some other member experienced with the EDU or try to count them all yourself. "Why don't you count them in the EDU instead ? Too lazy ?" was the "joke" I received.

I'm sorry that I called Spendios a prick, that was uncalled for, name calling is always uncalled for. I really am very sorry Spendios about that, but if you see your response as a serious reply as I did and not jocular you might agree that could be considered uncalled for as well.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Ok, I after posting that last message a stroke of genius hit me on how to find out how many units there are. I copy and pasted the entire EDU into MS Word, deleted the beginning paragraphs so there was just unit slots, typed in "unit_cost" into replace, hit replace and it told me that all 461 "unit_cost" had been replaced (I just put empty space for it to be replaced with), so there must be 461 units in the game.

500-461=39, 39+7+12 (the 7 and the 12 coming from Foot's post on new slots being freed up)=58 new units that to my knowledge have been freed up for EBII.