Baktrian recruitment of "pure" hellenic units.

Something I found strange: Out of the Baktrian homeland provinces, only Baktria itself allows the recruitment of the three basic Psiloi unit types. While it may be that Baktria was more densely settled by Hellenes than anywhere else east of Mesopotamia, it seems strange that there would be both A) significant numbers of "pure" hellenes of such low class as to only be able to serve as psiloi [given that the Greco-baktrians and their Indo-greek offshoots were a small, ethnically distinct ruling class lording it over non-hellenic people, one would expect that every hellene that was willing to settle in that distant land would be granted at least enough land to make them Klerouchoi Phalangitai] and B) the toxotai would at the same time stick to their weaker bow type while the locals are using composite bows. Is there any direct evidence of Baktria using hellenes in such a lowly role?

There are other strange things about recruiment in type I provinces:

Only Dayuan, Baktria and Aria allow recruitment of Pelastai and their heavier derivatives, the thureophoroi and thorakitai.

Full Pezhetairoi are only found in Baktria. Sogdia has no phalangites at all, while allowing Agema, prodromoi and Hippotoxotai, but no Kataphraktoi. Dayuan (right next to it) allows Kataphraktoi, but not prodromoi or hippotoxotai, and no phalangites better than Pantodapoi.

Kophen has no Indohellenikoi Peltastai, but the Indohellenic regular and noble hoplites are present.

More generally, I can see why you went with giving the Indian provinces a unique flavour, but it does seem strange that a faction cannot recruit all its factional troops in its homeland provinces when at maximum development. Perhaps Pantodapoi Phalangitai, at least, should be added to the Indian provinces. Unless you are planning an Indian version of the Machimoi.

If any of the (seeming) inconsistencies above are deliberate, I would like to know the justification for them.

It would also be nice to see.. an Indian faction... even if it means to 'shut down' some.. realy... imagine that there would be thousands of more EB fans from India here... that would be great...

And Kongeslask.. I support posts like yours.. My first campaign in EB ever was Baktria... I had similar questions too... but I did not use this forum then!

I realy love Baktria:2thumbsup:

Have you still not noticed a few people with new sigs floating around this forum?

OP: It sounds to me as if Baktria needs a bit of a "tidy up", sounds like all of the recruitment has been added hap-hazardly, and it probaly is due to be neatened and made consitent. Afterall, even when it reaches 1.0, it is invetiable that such a huge project as EB is going to have a few loose ends.

Wasn't Baktria the "Siberia" of the Achaemenids where they exiled rebels and troublemakers from Ionia (and, I understand, conversely exiled Baktrian troublemakers the other way to Asia Minor) ? Dunno the numbers involved (although the frequent enough disturbances in Ionia ought to have added up to quite a few), but in any case it is my understanding Hellenic presence in the region was already at least a century or more old when Alex came by.

...although I'll give you the Toxotai with their piddly bent-stick bows seem a bit out of place in that part of the world...

Indian pikemen . I can imagine the flavor text if they were a M:TG card.



"When you get past the pikes they pull out a buster sword on you."

On a related note, I remember that in 0.8x, the Seleukids could recruit elephants and indian regionals if they seized Sind. According to the recruitment viewer, they can still do that, but the indo-hellenic units are NOT available to them. Is this intentional? At the same time they CAN recruit indo-iranian light and heavy cavalry.

Alot of unit AOR are messed up. For instance, there are a number of provinces where KH cannot recruit Iphikratous Hoplitai but can recruit Thorakitai Hoplitai, which are the heavier/richer version of the Iphikrateans. Also, KH cannot Massillian Hoplites in their factional MIC, which seems odd to me as they are a Hellenic unit. IIRC, the Indian Spearmen aren't recruitable at all for any faction, and certainly both Ethiopian Swordsmen and Agema (the two-handed axemen) are never recruitable. Red Sea Hoplties are only recruitable in Arabia, and not by the Ptolemaioi.

So I'd say it's just the result of oversight by the EB coders. Having taken a look at how their recruitment system is coded, it is quite daunting, requires alot of copy-paste-edit work to write (or modify) and so it's extremely easy to forget a province when you want to change an AOR.

@Kongelask:
AFAIK, yes. For one thing the Peltastai Indo-Hellenikoi simply can't be recruited by the Seleukides lest they would've looked exactly the same as the Iudaioi Taxeis (both units share a model...).

But you can have two skins per faction per model?

No, you just place one on the merc skin, but that only works for one faction.

Ahh, ok, that explains it.

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

@Kongelask:
AFAIK, yes. For one thing the Peltastai Indo-Hellenikoi simply can't be recruited by the Seleukides lest they would've looked exactly the same as the Iudaioi Taxeis (both units share a model...).

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Does this go for the Indo-hellenic hoplites and noble hoplites too?

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Originally Posted by CirdanDharix

, and certainly both Ethiopian Swordsmen and Agema (the two-handed axemen) are never recruitable.

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Ethiopean Agema have been completely erased from the game. I read somewhere on the board that there has been an archeological text that totally destroyed the realism of the unit.

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Originally Posted by Kongeslask

Does this go for the Indo-hellenic hoplites and noble hoplites too?

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Nope.

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Originally Posted by Kongeslask

Something I found strange: Out of the Baktrian homeland provinces, only Baktria itself allows the recruitment of the three basic Psiloi unit types. While it may be that Baktria was more densely settled by Hellenes than anywhere else east of Mesopotamia, it seems strange that there would be both A) significant numbers of "pure" hellenes of such low class as to only be able to serve as psiloi [given that the Greco-baktrians and their Indo-greek offshoots were a small, ethnically distinct ruling class lording it over non-hellenic people, one would expect that every hellene that was willing to settle in that distant land would be granted at least enough land to make them Klerouchoi Phalangitai] and B) the toxotai would at the same time stick to their weaker bow type while the locals are using composite bows. Is there any direct evidence of Baktria using hellenes in such a lowly role?

There are other strange things about recruiment in type I provinces:

Only Dayuan, Baktria and Aria allow recruitment of Pelastai and their heavier derivatives, the thureophoroi and thorakitai.

Full Pezhetairoi are only found in Baktria. Sogdia has no phalangites at all, while allowing Agema, prodromoi and Hippotoxotai, but no Kataphraktoi. Dayuan (right next to it) allows Kataphraktoi, but not prodromoi or hippotoxotai, and no phalangites better than Pantodapoi.

Kophen has no Indohellenikoi Peltastai, but the Indohellenic regular and noble hoplites are present.

More generally, I can see why you went with giving the Indian provinces a unique flavour, but it does seem strange that a faction cannot recruit all its factional troops in its homeland provinces when at maximum development. Perhaps Pantodapoi Phalangitai, at least, should be added to the Indian provinces. Unless you are planning an Indian version of the Machimoi.

If any of the (seeming) inconsistencies above are deliberate, I would like to know the justification for them.

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Ok, I am not the one who did the recruitment on those regions, but having read some on the matter, here are my justification for those choices.

They aren't "lucky guesses". That thing is certain. While some mistakes might have been made, there is a very good reason for most if not all of those choices...

Baktria-the motherland. Everyone and everything from that kingdom came from that region. It was the heartland of the Baktrians/IG, and everyone knew it.

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only Baktria itself allows the recruitment of the three basic Psiloi unit types

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Reason is simple. While those units weren't necessarily recruited by hellenes, there were enough hellenes around to "show them how it's done". In other regions, there weren't enough so, they used whatever was locally available. Well so far as having lowly "toxotai" in Baktria, there is evidence of massed archery, and a great many arrowheads found in AiKhanoum. Toxotai would be a step up from militia, and would use the cheapest bows. Toxotai is an unasuming "cheap" unit.

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Only Dayuan, Baktria and Aria allow recruitment of Pelastai and their heavier derivatives, the thureophoroi and thorakitai.

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Finds on the ground. Especially AiKhanoum. Also in DaYuan, present day Tadjikistan, a small fragment depicting the image of a soldier carrying a thureos and a small sword is found. Also in all those areas there was a significant number of greek colonies. That means that a trained infantry force could and would be raised.

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Full Pezhetairoi are only found in Baktria. Sogdia has no phalangites at all, while allowing Agema, prodromoi and Hippotoxotai, but no Kataphraktoi. Dayuan (right next to it) allows Kataphraktoi, but not prodromoi or hippotoxotai, and no phalangites better than Pantodapoi.

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Full Pezh. well I think that it stands to reason why they should be only recruitable in Baktria. Early on a decision was made NOT to give Baktrians a heavy phallanx unit and restrict the medium phallanx (Pezh.) to what they normally would have. If you see at the battle of Arrius river, the Baktrian forces there were just cavalry. It took a lot of population and some heavy training to crete a pike phallanx especially one of the pezhetairoi status.

Sogdia, land of horses and NOT hellenised. Not in the extreme that Baktria was, (in which in some part, Greek was supposedly spoken more than any other language in that region). Some military colonies were created there, comprised mostly of Thraikians (hence the Prodromoi). Local population was really into horse archery in there, and also Hippotoxotai but not much in the way of infantry. Locals didn't much care for infantry. In fact one of the Khotanese Saka words for infantry (-which wasn't used- also means "Sh*t"). Therefore not much in the infantry department could or should be recruited in there.

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Dayuan (right next to it) allows Kataphraktoi, but not prodromoi or hippotoxotai, and no phalangites better than Pantodapoi.

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In DaYuan, there is no absolute proof of Thraikian military colonies to have Prodromoi available like in Sogdia. Proximity to the Saka (and the destructive raid of theirs in 290 BCE) would mean that they knew of Kataphracts in there, and had to come up with a plan against them. Phallangites as I said earlier, in most areas of the kingdom only the basic infantry units should be had, or downright elite. If anything Baktria had everything in extremis. Lack of HA, I don't get, but as I said before, I just try to explain the recruitment policy, based on the history of the region.

Another question... Have you built Homeland in DaYuan and Sogdia? (IIRC both have that). For only in this case can you build all the available units. Or are you using the recruitment viewer? I hope it is the later, as I don't remember off hand the recruitment of said areas, and my current laptop just can't run EB. :shame:

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Kophen has no Indohellenikoi Peltastai, but the Indohellenic regular and noble hoplites are present.

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In Kophen (paropamisadae) was the Alexandria in Paropamisadae. It was settled by 7.000 phallangites that Alexandros left there and it was deemed a very important territory because it controlled the route to India. Local Hellenes would probably be Klerouchoi Phallangites, IG regular and Nob hoplites and of course horsemen. Now, IG peltastai would be a selection that not many would make in Paropamisadae, as they don't need to fight Indians and especially Indian Elephants, thus they needn't have evolved the IG peltastai to fight them with. In india, they did, not in Paropamisadae. In Paropamisadae they had excellent locals for that role, and no elephants to fight against.

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it does seem strange that a faction cannot recruit all its factional troops in its homeland provinces when at maximum development.

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I understand that, and this is why I tried to apply the history of the region into the discussion as to why each region gets what. I am not the one who did the recruitment, and as such there are some things that look odd to me, but for the most part, Baktrian recruitment makes perfect sense. It did seem odd to me as well, but I came to appreciate it, because it actually FORCES you to use local troops, with their pros and cons and realise the hardship that Baktrians must have faced when expanding their Kingdom.

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Perhaps Pantodapoi Phalangitai, at least, should be added to the Indian provinces. Unless you are planning an Indian version of the Machimoi.

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India has never been and could never be pike country... Reasons? Indian ELEPHANTES. A lighter, more maneuverable force would have to be develloped that could be amorphous enough to avoid an elephant, yet powerful enough to outfight the horde of indian infantry, especially its elite guild warriors. Hence why they created IG nob hoplites, or the other IG units, NONE of which is a full phallanx (maybe one is iphikratean, IIRC). I think Indian spearmen futhfill the role of the "Machimoi" nicely.

Anyways, I consider India and its surrounding territories to be among the most "unit rich" in EB. Other territories need more in the way of units and they will be getting them. Thus no new units for India and environs, but I honestly think that it is a GREAT depiction of India at that time.

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Another question... Have you built Homeland in DaYuan and Sogdia? (IIRC both have that). For only in this case can you build all the available units. Or are you using the recruitment viewer? I hope it is the later, as I don't remember off hand the recruitment of said areas, and my current laptop just can't run EB. :shame:

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Obviously I have, otherwise I could not have brought the factional MIC up to the required level. And the recruitment viewer confirms what I have experienced in-game.

On a related note, why is it that the Seleukids (not sure about other Diadochi) can recruit additional units of Hetairoi (which seem identical to the bodyguard unit) while Baktria cannot field additional numbers of their "palm-leaf riders"?

Historically, Seleukeides fielded Hetairoi, and many of them. Their bodyguard is the same as the Hetairoi they can field as a cav. unit (not bodyguard).

Baktrian bodyguards (the palm leaf guys), being both smaller in number and far fewer to begin with, are just bodyguards. Not a distinct unit. Design choices. However, I don't think that Baktria is lacking in cavalry, for that to be a problem.

Should there be some + cavalry units to recruit at the start with Baktria?
This way, they don't have heavy cavalry at the start!?.. And if you wish to gain money to build barracks - you realy need to relly only on your poor infantry - and that is if you win Seleucids because - you just can not use your Infantry for Horse Archers..:no:

Can EB team add a recruit slot in descr_buildings for at least one sort of Heavy infantry in Baktria - or a Higher Level barracks - this way it seems that you just don't use or have Heavy Cavalry most of the time - I think Baktria used heavy cavalry all or most of the time.. maybe I am wrong:inquisitive:

At the start:
1) You can't afford heavy cavalry;
2) You don't want heavy cavalry either. (Not useful enough against the horde of missile troops you face.)

As for cavalry, well the Baktrians have immediate acces to the excellent Kamboja's (they are also a merc unit) and if you expand into India you will get the Taxilan Agema as well. For heavy cavalry there's the Katraphraktoi and the Baktrioi Hippotoxotai. Apart from that you get access to various flavours of other Horse Archers, Mounted javelineers and Prodromoi.

Prodromoi are the best. If you have prodromoi, there is no reason to complain. They are the best.

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Originally Posted by keravnos

Local population was really into horse archery in there, and also Hippotoxotai but not much in the way of infantry.

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I thought hippotoxotai were horse archers, even literally? What is the difference?

Hippiotoxotai are greek horse archers wearing greek armour?

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Originally Posted by Pharnakes

Prodromoi are the best. If you have prodromoi, there is no reason to complain. They are the best.

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Compared to the rest of greek medium cavalry, they are overpowered. Their stats could be nerfed just a bit, cause currently they are in the same league with magnificent Lonchophoroi. Lowering their defence while leaving the attack the same could help, me thinks :hide:

BTW, anybody ever heard some mysterious sounds from the forum while posting a reply? I've just did :dizzy2:

Why shouldn't they be as good as lonchophoroi?

EDIT: On the whole I agree with you, I'm just looking at it from the opposite end: I think Lonchophoroi should be improved, their 8 armour seems rather low.

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Originally Posted by MiniMe

BTW, anybody ever heard some mysterious sounds from the forum while posting a reply? I've just did :dizzy2:

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No, but I did hear some movie/game adverts making a lot of noise, though.

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Originally Posted by Pharnakes

Why shouldn't they be as good as lonchophoroi?

EDIT: On the whole I agree with you, I'm just looking at it from the opposite end: I think Lonchophoroi should be improved, their 8 armour seems rather low.

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Well, I don't like that current Prodromoi are very good in melee. I like them very, but if they were some kind of agile fragile lancers and thus unique, I'd like them even better.
As per Lonchophoroi armor... If that would be raised, who'd care about recruiting Hetairoi? Not me. In my current campaign I use Lonchophoroi extensively and their 8 armour seems to work fine.

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

No, but I did hear some movie/game adverts making a lot of noise, though.

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thanx, now I know I'm not insane

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Originally Posted by bovi

I thought hippotoxotai were horse archers, even literally? What is the difference?

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Hippotoxotai would be the greek influenced Horse Archers of that area. Hellenized sogdians or "influenced" sogdians or outright bought.