Hellenic Royal Units

I have a question about the Royal and unique unit types of the hellenistic kingdoms.

Starting a new Macedonian Campaign, I plan to make my army compostions with like 1-2 "Royal armies", led by the King or Royal Family, and the other lesser armies, with very few Elites. How many units of like Hypastistai (Spelling?), Silvershields, those peltastai...things and Hetaroi would exist in the whole kingdom, If to play with historical Accuarcy?? I would be very grateful if someone would know...

And now when I ask, how about the elites of the other hellenes? How many of those Ptolemic Agemas? :egypt:

I heard that The Seleucids elite Thorakitai would be best represented by one singel unit ingame, would that be accurate?


(Yes, I love playing by house rules:sweatdrop:)
Thanks in advance :beam:

I would say that a general rule for royal units/faction elites is that there can never be more than 1000(ingame). Some units, like Druids, TAB, maybe even 'lesser' ones like Solduros should be limited to a single unit.

I haven't been able to recruit royal units yet but they will only be included in armies led by the faction leader or faction heir and they will be a very small part of the army (1 or 2 units).

For example: at Pydna (168 BC) The Macedonian Agema was about 3000 men while their whole army was (roughly) 44000. That's less than 10%.

When Polybius is describing the Ptolomaic preparations before Raphia (217 BC) he mentions: “Eurylochus of Magnesia commanded a body of about three thousand men known as the Royal Guard” and “Polycrates undertook the training of the cavalry of the guard, about seven hundred strong”

Two things strike me whever this question comes up. The first is that the number of elites should rise as you capture important cities, particually royal palaces. The second is that some units, like Companions are more than just "Royal Guards". Alexander's own Royal Squadron was only about 250 men but the Companion regiments numbered around 3-4000 all told.

My own house rule regarding 'Royal' units is only one per city capable of producing them. I also don't allow myself to rush through the barracks buildtree without spending time on other build trees as well.

I'd start off giving yourself no more than 1x hypaspistai, 2x peltastai, and 2x argyraspidai for Makedonia. As you expand, you theoretically enrich your Makedonian homeland, and so can recruit more of those elites from there. Additionally, taking key lands could allow you to expand your "agema." Note that the Seleukid agema was twice as large as that of the Ptolemies or Antigonids, 10k vs. 5k. So expanding to the point where you have a larger population and more area to govern should eventually allow you to increase the size of your agema.

do spartans count as royal units? :D can anyone but KH use spartans? ive never got into other hellens like KH


OOOO i just got Epilektoi Hoplitai... ive never used them before! >:) Ptolemy is going to love my new toy! hes gunna regret backstabbing me.

In my massive Makedonian Empire I have currently four Great Royal Armies plus reserves attached to each. Every army has two regiments of Hetairoi, of which one's only purpose is two fill the gaps of the depleted active regiment. Also in every army is a regiment of Peltastai Makedonikoi, plus reserve regiment. Then there is the Royal Guard of the Hypaspistai, refounded by Perseus Soter, which is almost always directly attached to H. M. The King Himself, consisting of two active regiments and one (actually two atm) reserve regiment. That said I afford some nice lesser elite units, like two (one) regiments of Skordiskoi Elite Infantry in two armies, and two (one) regiments of Thraikioi Rhompaiaphoroi in the other two armies. All lesser armies are elite-free.

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Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk

do spartans count as royal units? :D can anyone but KH use spartans?

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Technically, the Carthaginians can use Spartans: they appear in their unit roster so that Xanthippos gets a Spartan bodyguard. However there are no Spartan recruitment lines for Carthage, so they can only acquire them through bribing.