RTW Unit discussion

[Sir Moody]

well this is my first post (wanted to make it in the main hall where theres a fine discussion going on about roman armies BUT didnt read the small print :P) so i thaught id make my observations here and see what i can get going

firstly the Roman history is one of my passions while im partial to the Social side of it i do know the basics of the army organisation (tho names of specific units evade me)

ok the problem - the roman army is WAY too complex too be modeled for a game - they faught like no other nation of the timeand no-one came close to their organisation until LONG after most swords were disgarded for muskets - now i have that over with let me explain

there were 6 COMMON (ie seen through out the roman empire) type of Soldiers: generally organised by wealth or importance as well as millitary skill

the first was the poor mans soldiers - they had vertually no armour (only what they could buy or scavenge themselves) had no millitary training and often would use low tech weaponry ie clubs and slings and would skirmish in front of the main lines harrasing enemy lines (most enemys of rome lined up in one long line and charged) - i dont see ANY problem in commanding these

next came the light infantry man - this was the most common and when ever u see a roman legionare in films etc this is generally what ull see - light armour covering chest with a helmet a large shield armed with 2 javlins and a gladius (if uve seen Galdiator the swords they use are gladius's BUT the film gets a lot wrong - they were stabbing sowrds they had vertaully blunt edges no cutting only stabbing)
the javlins would be thrown into charging enemy or before a charge - these units were lightly trained conscripts and formed the back bone of an army - a lot more difficult to command due to sheer numbers and the javlins - effectivly they are skirmishers that arnt skirmishers

next the medium infantry - vertually the same as the above BUT with everything better quallity - better armour better weapons better training -of the above were the back bone - these are the arms - less in numbers but far more skilled these would be used to prop up the line (staggered with 2 units of light to every medium ie like this


M M M M M
L L L L L L


the lights get the enemy in comabt and bang the mediums knock them down - prety much the standard roman tactic for dealing with enemys - again they throw javlins into before a charge or during an enemy charge so another skirmishing nonskirmisher

the third was the mailed fist on the end of the arm - the real deal - elite soldiers armed with spears and gladius's with the best armour - the best weapons and the best training (veterans to boot) they would number less than 1 in 50 during the fight but they were the determining factor - if the mediums hadnt broken the fighting and thrown the enemy back these guys would mop up - not really much of a problem to command there are units like this in both Total war games (lots in MTW fit this bill)

the 4th would be the archer - armoured in the same way as the light infantry armed with small bows nothing to disinguish this from current archers so i wont mention it at all

5th is what disinguished the romans as revoloutionary - the first european culture to use horses as more than just transport to the field - the roman cavelry.
again if uve seen Gladiator ull be dissapointed - the charge seen in that film is LUDICROUS - 1 romans didnt have sadles until their late era and they were dieing off and so ARMOURED charges were impossible 2 roman horses were bred for speed they never could have supported the heavy legionares u see in that movie - it sadly gets it mostly wrong
in fact roman horse units were scouts - sent to find the enemy lines etc - later in the battle theywould be flankers - hit and run attacks - they would attack firstly throwing Javlins (the romans loved javlins) into the enmy then charging and fading - no prolonged combat - again easy to command as they are vertually allready in

6th - Artillery
the big guns so to speak - mostly these were defense and seige tools only but were still common (romans seiged a lot)
catapults - balistas and thats it - not note worthy

and thats really it discounting region specific units - i know little about them but i believe they could add even more complexity into commanding these forces (they wouldnt have gotten along very well with the roman army)

so the problem - can u keep track of everything on the field of combat - i cant tho i do try - can u imagin tryin to organsie these forces while keeping track of whos thrown the javlins and who hasnt - while keeping the archers raining down fire - the artllary hitting enemys no here near ure forces - while keeping the cavalry from been torn apart by getting too close and not running
hell the javlins alone ruin the - limmited ammo option - ucan no longer have unlimmited ammo with this as javlins would MASSACRE the enemy - they were armour peicing - high damaging ranged weapons - only thing reducing their effectivness is numbers - u can only carry so many per person

as i see it the gameing developers have 2 ways of fixing this - the best AI ever seen or not keeping the game historicaly correct - if they can manage the first it will be a master peice - better than either the first or the second - if the second holds true then its gladiator the game - no historical value at all cept they are romans fighting who the romans faught

well i think that ties it up - thanks for reading this far and let the opinions begin (and probably some flames)

[and another thing....]

as i see it the gameing developers have 2 ways of fixing this - the best AI ever seen or not keeping the game historicaly correct - if they can manage the first it will be a master peice - better than either the first or the second - if the second holds true then its gladiator the game - no historical value at all cept they are romans fighting who the romans faught[/B][B]

I agree with what you say but.....
if the game delivers everything that it promises to (and that is a big if I know) it will be so far in advance of anything else, including stw and mtw that we might have to accept it is not historically accurate. In order for it to work on the majority of computers, there is a limit to what can be achieved and this looks like its peeking over the edge already.

There may be hotkeys or a way of stacking up commands e.g. launch pilum at 20 & 10 yds then attack or fire 5 rounds of arrows and wait for further orders.

All I know at the moment is that I want it and I want it now..

[Gregoshi]

Sir Moody Welcome and thanks for that analysis Double thanks for the idea of a parallel thread for Junior Patrons here. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

[King James I]

You can't really say this is what the Roman army was because it went through different periods of reorginization especailly to do with auxillaries as more lands were added to the Empire. I'll divide the different periods of development that it went through from its earliest to latest periods.
Pre-Camallian or Servian times (ca. 600 B.C

The Servian infantry were divided into five property classes. The wealthiest of which were armed with swords and spears, round shields, greaves and breast-plates. All armour was of bronze. In the second class, no breastplate was worn, but a long shield was substitued for the round buckler. The third class was the same, save the lack of greaves, the fourth were only equipped with spears and javelins, and the fifth were composed of slingers. There were no references to archers. The cavalry was recruited from the wealthiest families to form 18 centuries.

Post Camillus(ca. 300 B.C)
The next great landmark in Roman military organization is associated with the achievements of Camillus. Apparently he was the guy who saved Rome from the Gauls who had sacked Rome in ca. 300 B.C. Roman battlelines were divided by class and age. I'll divide them into groups and sort from front to back.

Hastati: Young men full grown. They were armed with a heavy, long oval shield called a scutum, two pila or javelins, and armoured with whatever they could afford.

Principes: The were family men in their prime. They were armed the same as the hastati, but could afford better armour as they probably had more money.

Trinarii: One of the older veterans, who carried a long thrusting spear or husta, and armoured even better than the principes.

Velites: They were the youngest and poorest and were armed with four metre javelins, sword, and protected by a 3 foot shield and a helmet.

Navy
During the Punic Wars, Rome had to build their navy basically overnight, from 20-180 ships in a couple of months.

Hannibals armies. (ca.264 B.C)
Spanish infantry: These consisted of Balearic slingers, caetrati, light infantry armed with small round bucklers and javelins or spears, heavy infantry with a short sword, spear, and scutum, and a pilum, and armoured with mail (after Hannibal invaded Italy), and Balearic slingers. One thing I would like to see in the game is the ability to pillage army stores especially if Roman camps and fortresses are captured.

Africans and Numidians
Numidian light cavalrymen armed with round bucklers, and large javelins. Libyan infantry were originally armed in the Hellenistic fashion unitl Hannibals invasion of Italy where they were equipped from captured Roman arms, they probably retained their Greek-styled sheilds. War elephants with a mahout(I'm not sure if the were the Bush elephants or the smaller Ethiopian variety), also a contingent of Carthagian soldiers recruited from Carthage and its overseas territory, especially after their mercenaries rebelled because of lack of pay.

Gauls
Gaulish mercenaries came in the form mostly, of heavy cavalry most of whom would have been the nobles of their tribes or those warriors who had earned enough money to outfit themselves. Most would have been armed with an 8ft spear, a long sword, and armoured in mail (which they invented ca.300 B.C. Gauls also came as infantry and were armed with a long sword, and shield, and sometimes with a spear, and probably if they were mercenaries, they would have been armoured more than the run of the mill Gaul, whether through captured enemy armour, or having the money to buy armour. The coastal Atlantic Gauls based around Brittany, and the coastal British had a strong navy had a strong navy, and at first were superior to the Roman navy, because of their higher decks, unitl the Romans developed a staff with a hook on the end that demasted the Gauls ships so that they were becalmed because of lack of oars, so that the Romans could board them.

Basically the same as above, except the armament varied, depending on class and tribe. Examples are as follows

Cheuci nobleman: He is eqipped with a 12ft spear, imatation gladius, and flat sheld.

Young Chatti warrior

His weapons are the naional framea, a short assagai-like weapon, and a number of javelins.

Aeseti Tribesmen

He is equipped with a hexagonal shield and a club.

Ostrogoth Cavalry
The Ostrogoths has more cavalry than the Visigoths. Most cavalry were unarmoured, except the chiefs.

Frankish Warrior
He was armed with a heavy throwing spear, a throwing axe, and a round buckler,

Visigoth Warrior
The Visigoths were mainly infantry oval shields and long spears were frequently used, as well as captured Roman arms.

There are more units and periods to add but I will leave them for tomorrow as I have work at 6:00 a.m tomorrow and have to go to bed.

Post-Marius (107 B.C)

The legions were basically the same as before except, they became more of professional, self-reliant, and chain-mail became the standard armour. Gaius Marius also abolished the velites or javelin throwers, instead each legionarre was armed with 2 pilum as well as there other arms. The pilum was also changed where in place of iron rivets, a wooden peg was inserted. Not only was the javelin thus rendered unservicable, but it encumbered the warrior whose shield it had transfixed. Rome also used the navies of the Greek city states who resisted

Mithradates of Pontus
Mithradets' armies were a compound of Greek and Asiatic elements. It was composed a Macedonian-style phalanx albeit poorly trained, scythed chariots (which were a complet fiasco, provoking open lafter and ironical applause, the probable reason they didn't work against the legionnares was because they were relatively more mobile, and ligter armoured in comparison to the Phalangalists), and heavy cavalry (espesially Thassalian), light javeliners, and archers. Later he made up his army along Roman lines. He also had a large navy from his Greek allies, and had an alliance which several pirate factions.

Macedon:
The ponderous Macedonian phalanax of 200 B.C. differed completely from the armies of Macedon Philip and Alexaneder. With the tendency towards heavier weapon and armour, it in effect rverted in character to the Greek phalanx of the fifth century B.C., although they did have very good heavy cavalry.

Seleuciads

Basically the same as above, except for the addition of War Elephants of the Indian variety with a tower on its back with an some archers or an archer and a pikemen.

Ptolomies
Same as above except their elephants didn't have a tower and were smaller than the Indian elephants, being an extinct jungle elephant from Ethiopia.

Parthinas

Made up of mostly horse archers, and super heavy cavalry or catapharchs. At Carrahae they numbered about 10 to 1, but thereafter the ratio decreased in favour of the catapharchs.

[Efrem Da King]

Actuallly the roman ifantry dudes carried pilums (javilins) with soft head s so that when they hit a sheild it was hard to get them out making the ememy drop their shield http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif. This was the idea rather than to kill people.

[Sjakihata]

Also so that the enemy could not pick them up and throw the pila (pl) back.

[Sir Moody]

james - u know a lot more than i (as i said i love the social side of the empire) but still u can understand my worry - the pilums make for a very complicated control method (and pilams only started their use when Rome was in its mid era i know)

another problem ive come up with is rather worrying - the romans were nearly unbeatable - if u were a european u would have no armour - a small shield and bad weapons - basically theyhad very little to compete with rome - the only other faction i think could hold its own would be the Byzantines who were an empire in their own right

another problem is faction organisation - the tribes were not united, another reason y rome won so often - they would be led by a tribal leader and this tribe would control maybe one province (Rebels in MTW in effect) - when they finally did unite near the end of the roman era things started to go wrong (the roman millitary was in tatters anyway)

i really wonder if they can pull this all together and make a good game...

[Efrem Da King]

Well in the main game they're gonna make it you play a roman faction and you do what the senate tells you. until your strong enough to start a civil war and take over to become emporor http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Gregoshi]

Efrem, if I read the preview correctly, you will have the option of refusing the mission from the Senate.

As to some of the concerns expressed, I'm hoping there will some form of unit AI in which they will automatically employ their tactics without you having to micro manage them.

This unit AI is one thing I've wanted to see in the TW series for a while. It just doesn't seem right that a unit would stand there and let the enemy charge full bore into its flank. I'd like to see units have some level of independence action like impetuous units do, but not so extreme.

The preview mentions that the game will be playable by all ranges of player skills, so I'd think it can't be a micro management nightmare for them to say that.

[mojo_helpermonkey]

Hey guys, I loved all these replies as they were very informative and well thought out. As a history major with emphasis on Rome (my thesis is on Marius, Sulus, Augustus, and Caesar Rome) I have to agree that it would be diifficult to model the Roman army as it was incredibly diversified, more so than any army then or now. I won't go into detail as you all have done an excellent job but suffice to say both the military and political aspect of Roman life was VERY complex, hence all the disruptions and problems. Early Rome might be easier, with conquest against the Latins and Eutruscans and the eventual conquest of the pennisula, but conquest over all of the continent and into N Africa and Asia would be damn tough. Also, by the time Caesar came to power, there was limited expansion because realistically, the empire was strung too thin. It became an empire of defense against gothic invasions and rebellion put downs against the armies of the East. Although emperors such as Claudius and to a lesser some of the later men like Aurelius took campaigns to England and north of France, they were mostly short lived. It would be cool to model the Roman empire taking over the continent but maybe a pain to program. Many provinces would have different soldiers and armies, and how would they be handled? Many times Rome did not simply envelope provinces like in M:TW, they formed bizarre relationships with them were they were obviously subservient to them but held some form of independence. This was the relationship between Rome and the Greek cities formed after Marius and Sula. Armies and govenors were set in place but there were still governments with a sense of (untrue) independence. Oh well, who knows. If M:TW is any indication, they'll pull it off i would bet http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Gazza the Lionheart]

So in RTW can you only pick the Romans or can you pick other civs because i'd love to play as the barbarian hordes sacking Rome.

[Sir Moody]

having read it better - Rome only in SP

any in MP

this solves a lot of the problems i forsaw but does rather limmit a bit

[Gazza the Lionheart]

Quote[/b] (Sir Moody @ Jan. 12 2003,17:45)]having read it better - Rome only in SP

any in MP

this solves a lot of the problems i forsaw but does rather limmit a bit
Well if this is the case then its gonna be totally useless to people like myself who only play single player. Thats really part of the enjoyment that I get out of MTW is the ability to try and beat the game with different civs and coming up with new strategies for the various civs.

[King James I]

Sorry guys if I seem to be a bit of a know it all, but hearing that the next TW game was going to be based in the Roman Republic/Empire(my favorite period of history) renewed my interest in this period and convinced me to get some books out from the library, one of which is really good, that being Warfare in the Classical World by John Warry. I highly recommed it, it chroicles the changes and advances in Ancient warfare from 1600 B.C.-A.D. 800 (it includes not only the armies and their arms involved in the various conflicts, but also historically reserched pictures that were drawn from eyewitness accounts of various sources, these include the Memoirs of one of Alexanders generals, Julius Caesar, Cornelius Sulla, accounts by Roman and Greek historians such as Livy, Plutarch, Theyidides, Herodotus, and many others and also from detailed bas-reliefs from various monuments, battle plans of the main battles of this period, based on as I have said eyewitness accounts, and a running chronoloy of world events from 1600 B.C-A.D 800., although it concerns mainly Greece and Rome and their main enemies.
The main reason I made the post last night is so that hopefully the game is going to be as historically accurate as possible. I believe it will still be a great game as long as the different units are well-balanced as they were historically, what I mean is there was no such thing as an invicible army, no matter how well-trained and disciplened there are, as the Romans found out several times, they were blessed to have a large number of very able generals. Various armies armies that were defeated Roman legions include, Hannibal and his Carthagiens of course (this had more to do with Hannibal's leadership than the composition of his armies, although he would have had to have good troops), Pyriss of Epirus, the Gauls several times (even after Julius Caesar had pacified the Gauls, he had to rush back to take control of troops to subdue the Gauls, who rebelled, and defeated the armies of some of his lieutentants), Mithradates of Pontus, Parthia, Spartacus, and others, the funny thing is in the Empires late life man of the so-called saviours of Rome who saved Rome from the Barbarian Hordes were Barbarians themselves, men such as Aetius(who defeated the Huns).




As I promised last night I am going to list more units and other time periods.

What I didn't mention last night was Rome's reliance on other nations or tribes for auxillaries (especially cavalry), in earlier times Rome mostly recruited auxillaries from other Italian tribes such as the Samnites, but later Rome relied on foreign peoples (especially Gaulish and later, German cavalry, and later Sarmatian) as their Italian allies' loyalty was in question (they were often on the enemies side in battle). Other auxillaries were added as other territories were subjecated these include, Baeleric slingers,Numantian light cavalry(after Carthage was defeated), Syrian foot and horse archers, standard auxillarii infantry armed with an oval shield, two lancae, and armorued in mail, Swiss auxillarii with heavy javelins,and others. The other thing I didn't mention was the large part their engineers played in their conquests and defense.

Palmyra

Palmyra was a Syrian desert city that was a Roman ally that policed the eastward caravan routes. The Palmyans, as an antidote for Parthain armies, deployed a combination of light and heavy cavalry, sophisticated siege equipment. Unlike Parthia, which relied mostly on feudal levies, Palmyra absorbed Roman administrative techniques.

Imperial Period (ca. A.D 80-300 A.D

Nothing much changed in much in this era, except that segmented, plate armour became standardized in this era. Also legions were formed in subject territories, not just from Italy. A new cavalry detachment was formed by the name of Clibinarii( which had Parthian, Sarmatian, and Palmyran influences) armed with long sword, ca. 10ft. spear, and both horse and rider were heavily armoured, whether in mail, scale, or lameller.

Roman Army ca. A.D. 300- A.D. 800

They Roman army had changed by Contatine's day. The old legions and auxillarii were now second class border troops, greatly reduced in numbers. A mobile elite field army now existed to counteract the repeated invasions of various
German tribes. It consisted of cavalry units vexilationes palatinae (10 units of 500 each) and 5 infantry legiones palatinae (each unit being about 1000-1500 strong) and auxialla pallitina (10 units of 500 each) The auxillaries' equipment depended on region. All light cavalry were armed with javelins and spathae(cavalry swords which were for slashing). The armies that these soldiers that they fought are detailled in my earlier post. Thank you for those who have had the patience, and I apologise for the length and long-windedness of this and the other post.

[Efrem Da King]

Gregoshi i think its gonna be like mtw if ya don't do what the pope(senate) tells you all the other christan(roman) factions will bash you up. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Thats what I ment i didn't mean that you had to do them. They'll prob be GAs http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif What do you think?? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

[Quid]

hmmm...since the Roman military history seems so complicated and the troops so diversified...why not also make 3 periods then...and early, medium and late. That would solve a lot of problems then. Also, I would just love to play other fractions and not only thr Romans (although they seem incredibly appealing) but it would get kind of monotonous after a while, I reckon. Don't want to paint everything black before its release of course...over all, I am sure that it is going to be a great game with glitches in the history as well as compromises in the units and warfare...but that is only to expect...it would otherwise take an age of an empire to create...

Quidster

[ZIM!]

whatever you do end up getting in rtw your bound to get Wizards that will prolly frustrate you more than your enemies that will cause remirging factions to pop up in crazy places like a army of Picts invading from Abysinia or elite Nubian slingers conducting an amphibious assult on Gaul or perhaps rebellions in provinces with 200 percent loyalty..yeah those pesky wizards will show theyre face http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

[Knight_Yellow]

Well put it this way if u cant play as any other faction apart from the romans ill buy it but i wont be happy at all.

wat happened to the multiplayer campaign?

however i do strongly belive that there will be other playable factions its just that its ROME TW so there showing u sum details about the titles main faction.

[Quid]

I just love to discuss this...what do we really know about the game....lol. It's all speculation...but you know...am sure that we will all be happy once it comes out...it's going to be a runner

Quidster

[muffinman14]

If CA said this game will be awesome than I doubt that you could only play one faction... wheres the awesomeness in that.. I mean if this is goin to be all that they say its goin to be than they are goin to have at least 6 other playable factions in it.

[King James I]

Quote[/b] (Sir Moody @ Jan. 12 2003,09:07)]james - u know a lot more than i (as i said i love the social side of the empire) but still u can understand my worry - the pilums make for a very complicated control method (and pilams only started their use when Rome was in its mid era i know)

another problem ive come up with is rather worrying - the romans were nearly unbeatable - if u were a european u would have no armour - a small shield and bad weapons - basically theyhad very little to compete with rome - the only other faction i think could hold its own would be the Byzantines who were an empire in their own right

another problem is faction organisation - the tribes were not united, another reason y rome won so often - they would be led by a tribal leader and this tribe would control maybe one province (Rebels in MTW in effect) - when they finally did unite near the end of the roman era things started to go wrong (the roman millitary was in tatters anyway)

i really wonder if they can pull this all together and make a good game...
The way I think with the hybrid units like the legionares would be to make it that to use a certain weapon you have to use a corresponding formations, say to use a pilum you have to use an open order formation, to use a sword and shield you use a wedge formation, and to use a spear you use a close order plalanx-like formation.

With the problem with the Gauls and Germans, it would be cool if we could control the biggest tribes, and have a Glorius Achievement of subjecating or allying with the other tribes(I know it is ahistorical, but I believe Vertigertox came close sp?)

[Acronym]

They'll also need to get the individual soldier spacing right. While greek armies locked shields, romans needed more space for each soldier(3ft right?), so a roman army in close formation should be a little more open than a greek close formation, also barbaric tribes should be pretty loose and disorderly. If this is the case, there should be collision detection so if the soldiers are too close they won't have room to fight(like at cannae).

I don't care if it's not perfectly accurate to history. It is a game and I want to have fun playing it instead of having to take 4 years at West Point in order to command an army.

[Rosacrux]

This TW game might be called Rome, but it ain't gonna be only about bloody Rome Other playable factions have been announced, and among them are the Greeks.

Those should have their own units too, right? Right. So, let's see some units of the Greek world in that timeframe, if we accept the around 300 B.C. notion.

So, here are some suggestions:


Foot units:

- Hoplite (hoplites): The standard Hellenic city-state soldier, great in defence, good in offense, kinda lacking in versatility and mobility. Good armour, big shield, spear wielding (standard 1-handed spear, 2 m. long appr.) wearing plate armour.

- Light Hoplite (ekdromos hoplitis). The standard hoplite without the armour: more mobile but also less adept in defense and more vulnerable to missiles.

- Phalanx (phalangites, pezheteros): Philippos brought a real revolution reorganizing the forces of the Macedonian kingdom to fight with a six-meter pike (sarissa) light armour, small shield, a small sword (large knife, actually) for prolonged melee, and in a very tight formation. 5 ranks would fight at once. Under Philippos they beat every hoplite army they met, under Alexander they claimed the glorious Persian Empire.

- Argyraspides (same in Greek): An upped version of the standard pezetairos of the Macedonian army, would make the elite unit of the Argyraspides (”those who bear silver shields”). Like Phalanx, but with much better armour and better shields, and better swords for prolonged melee

- Hypaspists (Hypaspistes): Only the best fighters would make into the Hypaspist unit: Elite Macedonian infantry, a hypbrid of hoplite and phalangite, with better armour than the latter and better mobility than the former, trained to fight either in phalanx formation or as light infantry (in the latter case they carried three javelins and a sword, along with their shield).

- Peltast (Peltastes): The Peltast derives from Thrace and the Threacean peltasts were considered the best. Very adept light infantry, fast but lightly armoured, carrying a medium shield (the “pelti”, which gave them their name too).

- Thracian Peltast (Thrax or Thrakas Peltastes): An elite peltast unit (prolly region specific) – see above.

- Shield bearer (thireoforos): If we go into the Hellenistic era, this was the Hellenic adoption of the Roman legionarii. Decent gear (modelled after the Roman) but with an oval shield (“Thireos”) instead of the Scutum and without the gladius (he had a sword alright, but not as good).

- Cretan archer (Krites toxotes): The best archers of that timeframe came from Crete, the southernmost island of Greece. Professional soldiers, they used the best bows of their times and could keep ground even in melee, if need arose.

- Rhodian Slingers (Rodii sphendonite). Also, the best fighters in their respective area of expertise. They used heavy lead bullets and excelled in many battles Alexander fought, as light skirmishers.

- Agrian javelinmen (Agriannes akondistes): The non-Greek tribes of the Balkans offered also troops to accompany Alexander’s army. One of the most prominent were those unarmoured but very fast and effective skirmishers.



Cavalry units

- Companion cavalry (“Heteri”): Prolly the first real heavy shock cavalry in history, they were definitely the best cavalry in the respective timeframe and the decisive factor in most of Alexander’s battles. Consisted of the Macedonian nobility of the times.

- Agema (same in Greek): the crème de la crème of the heteri cavalry, was the agema. Same as above, but with top morale, and better in defence.

- Prodromoi cavalry (prodromi hippis). Medium/light cavalry, called also “sarissofori”, because the featured the famous “hippiki sarissa” a shorter and most balanced version of the phalanx sarissa pike. No armour, no shield so their use wasn’t head up against unbroken enemies (who had plenty of missile units intact) but in flanking, taking advantage of a braking into the enemy formation, chasing away the skirmishers etc.

- Thessalian cavalry (thessali hippis): The second best cavalry units of the Greeks, the first to fight in the “romvos” formation and the teachers of the Macedonian cavalry. A notch lower in quality than the heteroi ippis.

- Paeonian scouts (Peones hippis): Light cavalry, for scouting, recon. and to harass the enemy skirmishers.


Those are just some from the top of my head, there are plenty more that could be used.

[Sir Moody]

while i do remmeber seeing the greeks in the preview i dont think it anounced them as playable in SP (they all will be in MP so thats a void point)

i believe james is right tho - u could play a large german/frank tribe and unite the tirbes/rebels behind u that would work (rather fun too)

other factions which mite make sense would be the greeks as they were unitedish (city states working as one if threat was bad) and the byzantines - so 4.... not many

as for greek and roman formations - roman shields were square alowing sheilds to touch edges to create sheild walls
greek sheilds (well not all but most greek states) used Circular sheilds and overlaped these to create a shield wall (which didnt work as well) so they would be too close to really notice a difference

[Rosacrux]

If only Rome is a playable faction in SP, I (and many others, I presume) won't buy this game at all. No matter how impressive it is.

But I am sure they'll have more than one playable faction in SP - it wouldn't make sense otherwise, no matter how appealing the Romans are.

Damned, more than a whole bleeding year until it comes out...

[Coldstream]

While I respect your opinion, the one thing that you must remember is that this won't be MTW with some Roman units substituted for the standard MTW units. RTW will be RTW. In the same way that STW differs from MTW, RTW will be tweaked and reengineered and fiddled with until it is set up for Roman combat.

This will not be a third-party mod, it will be a completely redesigned and restructured retail game, and being so, the time will have gone into it to give you the best Roman experience that the designers can.

Nothing is impossible with a computer game. Just add some code here, some graphics there, and King Arthur becomes Julius Caesar. I wouldn't think on it too much, I put my faith in the guys at CA. Just as Vikings will knock my socks off, Romans will make my clothes explode.

-Coldstream

[The Marcher Lord]

I am sure there will be plenty of SP playable factions other than Roman. It would be a huge injustice to the SP players (who make up the vast majority of STW/MTW players according to polls) to limit them to one faction. CA would definately be taking a step backwards if this were the case - they are not that daft

[Efrem Da King]

^ I agree http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Maybe CA could include multiple civs, but have a seperate strategy map for all of them. North Africa for the Carthaginians, a focus on the Medditaranean for the Greeks, etc. This would also enable CA to make the game more story based, having 'set piece' historical events happening at certain times, as the focus would be on an individual civilisation on each different map.

[Dr_Who]

In the late period of the Roman Empire, the commanders could employ heavy cavalry. They used these guys called the clibinari. They were like the Katphaktoi of MTW. The Romans also employed Sarmatian Mercenaries who were the same as the Kats. It would be great if the game would have them.

I also hope that when Rome comes out you could choose to have a pre-marius army. The Roman army before the reforms of marius was a lot more complicated.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

I have just purchased the feb 2003 UK issue of PC GAMER. I skipped straight to the preview on RTW(After watching the rolling demo,of course&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. The game looks incredible. I am paticularly impressed by the new strategy map. It is no longer made up of strictly defined regions. Instead, you can zoom in and SEE THE ACTUAL LAND YOU WILL BE FIGHTING ON Even better, units stay exactly where you put them on the map, so you can assign units to mountain passes, bridges and such like, in order to force the enemy to take the most difficult route through your lands. This is going to be ace http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif