Military Colonies

[Zarax]

Hi, I was wondering if you guys could point me at some good sources about klerukoi/katiotai/liby-phoenician settlement and how the systems worked.

I'm trying to find a good way to implement it in RTW/BI but I'm not 100% satisfied by any of my attempts yet...

[Prussian to the Iron]

isnt this already reflected in EB?

[Zarax]

If you're referring to EB's government system yes, but not completely imho.

What EB does is more or less letting us follow the path of where historically this settlements were and not the mechanics of creating new ones which is actually my question.

[Prussian to the Iron]

you mean............making new cities with different systems?

or do you mean expanding on the already-present system?



I myself wouldn't mind a sub-mod for EB, allowing the choice between military towns or economic towns. of course, i msure this will be present in EBII ince it is in M2

[Zarax]

Well, my current implementation of this is a tech tree that starts with military colony (no units and penalty in farming) and develops into higher levels giving gradual access to a certain AOR roster.

To make it more accurate I would need to know how historically this kind of settlements were created and managed...

[Krusader]

Well, my current implementation of this is a tech tree that starts with military colony (no units and penalty in farming) and develops into higher levels giving gradual access to a certain AOR roster.

To make it more accurate I would need to know how historically this kind of settlements were created and managed...

Was going to write it as a cooking recipe style, but couldn't make it funny.

The Successors created military colonies to have a source of manpower to raise troops from, but they were also meant as means to control communications routes, at least in the Seleukid kingdom. The colonies although prosperous in many areas were still islands in an Iranian sea though. Seleukid control over their lands was based on two things. 1) Keeping the Hellenistic military settlements loyal and 2) Gaining the loyalty of the native, usually Iranian, nobility.

Military settlements were usually settled along trade routes or right nearby major population centres, like a Thracian colony near Susa, numerous Greek settlements in Arachosia and in the Indus valley. This was to have troops locally available in case revolt or invasions nearby, but also to have strongholds along vital routes where trade, news and armies can go through.

They were given a plot to till land and were usually left to their own devices. Unfortunately I don't have the exact details, but it seemed to be a policy NOT to give any katoikiai polis status as that included citizenship rights and whatnot. And it seems the kleruchoi/katoikiai troops were only called up for emergencies or large-scale campaigns (which were few after 272 BC). Bar-Kochva implies this and that any fortresses, forts and towers were garrisoned by mercenaries (does not mention cities though). There is also an inscription from the days of Eumenes I of Pergamon attesting to him using mercenaries to garrison his border forts and perhaps one from Antigonid Makedonia, so there is some evidence that it was normal to do so. It does make some sense as if kleruchoi troops were constantly called upon to fight there would be fewer people to till their land allotments and if they tilled their lands the money from taxation (if they were taxed) could pay for mercenaries.

Also, another important caveat. Most military settlers were usually not native or culturally linked to the native population they settled in. The Ptolemies did not use Nubians from what I recall, as they shared cultural ties with the native Egyptians.

[Zarax]

Hmm, this kind of makes the whole recruitment idea much more limited than I thought.

Resettling different ethinicities around sounds like might have been a better plan for public order than military itself.

How historical would it be to allow recruitment from a kleruchoi with severe farming penalties? Also, were the troops raised from there encouraged to keep their native style (aka a thracian kleruch giving thracian peltastai) or were they hellenized?

[Krusader]

Hmm, this kind of makes the whole recruitment idea much more limited than I thought.

Resettling different ethinicities around sounds like might have been a better plan for public order than military itself.

How historical would it be to allow recruitment from a kleruchoi with severe farming penalties? Also, were the troops raised from there encouraged to keep their native style (aka a thracian kleruch giving thracian peltastai) or were they hellenized?

Resettling different ethnicities was as you say for both public order and military. The Diadochoi were for the most part Macedonian dynasts who ruled non-Hellenized subjects. To retain a loyal army they needed troops from their own people or from non-native people. Also, as it was Alexander's army of pikemen, peltasts and cavalry that had conquered most of the known world, they were much more inclined to retain that style of warfare, which meant they needed Greeks, Macedonians & other hellenized peoples to use as pikemen, because of military traditions fighting as such and also the prevalent idea that only Hellenized peoples could fight as phalanx/pike phalanx.

Ptolemaioi for example settled large numbers of Jews, Samaritans, Galatians, Thracians and Cretans in addition to Greeks & Macedonians in their domains, because they did not wish to use local Egyptian troops (although it seems there was limited use of them before Raphia). Most non-Hellenic kleruchoi seem to have retained their fighting style in the first decades of settlement, but that they gradually became more hellenized, although even from get go many were incorporated into the phalangitai and thureophoroi/peltastai. Galatians seem to have been a exception, and Cleopatra VII even had a bodyguard of Galatians. In Ptolemaic Egypt though, there were separate laws and judges for Egyptians on one side and the remaining non-Egyptians on the other and Ptolemaic society seems to have been segregated...one second-hand author calling it "ancient apartheid". Although this doesnt seem to take into account that the Ptolemies cultivated a strong relationship with the Egyptian priesthoods to keep them on their side.
For a general answer though, Hellenic subjects were encouraged to maintain their culture and most "non-Hellenic/non-native" seemed to have been encouraged to hellenize.

Kleruchoi with severe farming penalties thing I'm not too sure about. I myself would have given them a higher upkeep than what they really should have had, to simulate that their farms are not tilled at full capacity (they might have slaves and wives to do that for them) and also a salary when on campaign.

Maybe abou or paullus will answer more or correct me if Im wrong on some accounts.

[Zarax]

Thank you for your very detailed answer, Krusader.

Following this discussion I changed my model to be twofold:

One building tree would be used to emulate colonization/"cultural assimilation" purposes (for example establishing of kleruchs or Anthiochius IV attempted hellenization policy of the seleucid empire but also the practice of establishing colonies and developing them).

While in vanilla RTW this would be hard to properly emulate, BI offers a better range of penalties for the action of trying to change the cultural outlook of same places, making it costly both in terms of public order and money. Establishing that kind of policy is not cheap, doing it in a completely "alien" settlement results in an initial 100% happiness penalty which may or may not lessen with time (as neighbours and nearby armies of the same culture adds to the cultural resistance factor), making it expensive to garrison and less profitable in the short medium/term.
Of course this incentives the player to colonize larger areas at a given time to lessen the penalties but that requires vast amounts of money and a very stable strategic situation (each step of colonization takes time, if you stop the process in one place there may be domino effects elsewhere).

A second building tree would be dedicated to the military settlements of different culture.
This tries to emulate trends like Carthage's practice of settling (or am I confusing it with a simpler garrisoning process? EB does allow AOR overlap to some extent in the area though) iberians in africa and lybians (liby-phoenicians?) everywhere else, but also acts like Egypt's galatian kleruchs, Bythnian invitation of the galatians to settle in Anatolia and to a lesser extent macedonian use of thracian auxiliaries.

This again is a very expensive process carrying tax/farming penalties plus a cultural penalty as keeping the resettled natives won't keep just their fighting style which may me partially balanced by a small happiness bonus to represent their policing qualities.
This of course yelds the benefit of giving access to soldiers previously unavailable in the area but the extent of how much unit quality/variety is widely debatable in terms of historical accuracy, although the galatian examples seems to indicate that it was indeed possible to do it extensively if a kingdom wishes to pay the price for it.

It is still a quite unrefined implementation but I'm inclined to believe it's an acceptable historical compromise given the limits of the RTW-BI engine and it allows to represent cultural movements to a degree.

[johnhughthom]

I myself wouldn't mind a sub-mod for EB, allowing the choice between military towns or economic towns. of course, i msure this will be present in EBII ince it is in M2

They have already revealed what the Castle/City system will be used for, check the latest EBII preview.

[Zarax]

Sorry for pushing this again, but it would be nice to get an opinion on the revision I posted...

[Krusader]

Looks good to me.
Try it out first and see how it works ingame though.
If it has any bearing though, a book mentioned that the military colonies founded by Alexander (and later Seleukos) also served another role, to keep restless mountain tribes or villages in check.

[Zarax]

Thanks.
From preliminary tests the military side doesn't seem overpowered as it takes substantial time and resources to develop the colonies (8 turns and 4000d for a factional one and a bit less for the military settlements), so on that side they are useful only if one plans a long war on one front to shorten logistics.

The culture conversion/order side needs more testing as it's substantially trickier to balance, as one badly placed colony will result in major unrest issues.
All in all, after some tinkering I think it gives realistic results, although with some quirks.
Turtle players will benefit the most, although blitzing to reach already established colonies of the same culture is also a viable tactic.

If you're interested, I will send you a copy of the final implementation when it will be done.

[Krusader]

Dont have RTW installed. Had a few problems running it in Vista and decided I want to keep my hair for a while longer...or rather spend it on getting MTW1 to work. Yes MTW1.

[Zarax]

Ah, MTW... My first modding place in the TW world... Good luck with running MTW on Vista, let the community know if you're lucky...