Try Guard Mode on until the time to charge and break them. Check my Sweboz guide for the specifics. It cab easily be modified to apply for Romans as well.
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Try Guard Mode on until the time to charge and break them. Check my Sweboz guide for the specifics. It cab easily be modified to apply for Romans as well.
An interesting discussion on something I have thought about a lot, the Gauls vs. Sweboz thing. When playing EB I played Eurobarbs exclusively, mainly Arverni/Aedui, Sweboz and Getai but also the Britons as well. Having played all multiple times on regular RTW.exe at Vh campaign/Hard battle difficulty, and completing the campaigns for all factions multiple times I have observed the following about their relative strengths.
With respect to morale just about any army without a good general will route, especially on normal battle difficulty. The computer's tactics are sloppy, move a couple troops and the AI will shift much or all of the army around tiring out the troops, leading to easy stamina loss. The computer makes little use of terrain, so seizing high locations and skirmishing competently with missile troops (iaosatae are ideal IMO west of Cretan merc territory, more cost effective than Medininkas in skirmishing) leads to reliable wins against the typical Eurobarb infantry spam armies. Iaosatae have the advantage of being fast moving, which enables them to run back and forth and outmaneuver tired opponents fairly consistently so, used competently the Celt slingers give one major advantage against Sweboz. Aside from skirmishing the main point of EB is to hit opponent on flank and/or rear, especially when they are tired, to create chainroutes and I find all troops to be effective at this, the main thing is being skilled enough with the user interface to micromanage troops a bit on the flank, that done just about any troop will do, from the standard troop of the line Bataroas/Botroas/Dugunthiz/Clubman on up to high lethality cavalry charges, the stab in the back works almost regardless of who performs it as long as the enemy is somewhat tired, and the general is either absent, or killed. So if the original poster switched and played a Celtic faction against Sweboz, I think he would find them easy to route also. Playing Celts on Vh/H I routinely route and massacre Sweboz infantry hordes with ease by out skirmishing with the superior range slingers, and then routing a flank with leuke epos javelin showers and charges. The only difficulty there ever is in routing Sweboz is if they hide in woods or if they have a strong general, in which case route/destroy their cavalry and tire out the Sweboz warlord from the front and lance him in the back.
Overall having used all Eurobarb cavalry as well as celt chariots I say that for cost effectiveness the Gallic leuke epos is the best cavalry around when used competently. They are relatively cheap, fairly easy to recruit as a levy or a merc, they have Very Good stamina, they have 6 javelins with 55 range as opposed to 4 short range for the Sweboz ridonez, Leuke epos shift directions very quickly which is very important in high micromanaged skirmishing, and they have the high lethality AP melee attack. Due to the glitch that AP lancers/chargers retain AP high lethality in prolonged melee combat, this enables Leuke epos to outperform Ridonez in hand to hand, simply because AP 0.30 lethality >>> 0.15 no AP. Its that simple and believe me I wanted to like Sweboz light cavalry, but it was only with reluctance and much gameplay that I realized how dominant and more cost effective the Leuke epos is when micromanaged skillfully on the flanks.
I see people praising Wargozes and Gaesatae and naked fanatic spearmen due to their fear effect, and I have played with all but believe me when the enemy is starting to tire just about any charge or missile shower on the flank/rear is sufficient to start a route, fear is nice but not necessary, the main thing is cause casualties and hit the flank. On hard battle the AI troops have big morale bonuses, especially when a general is present, and while fear is often effective at starting a chainroute, I always think about the high cost of gaesatae and wargozes/naked fanatic spearmen. Leuke epos at about 490 gold upkeep can routinely route the enemy cavalry with jav/skirmishing and AP charges, and then mop up the flank/rear of the enemy battle line with AP charges and have stamina to spare to ride down the enemy troops. Playing huge army size I have used Gallic light cav to get upwards of 1,000 kills in so many battles that it becomes routine and German light cav, with inferior stamina and weaker charges/fewer javelins and no AP charge simply are inferior to Leuke epos bottom line. I have played both extensively and with high micro skills the Leuke epos tends to rack up crazy chevrons and insane kill totals, Sweboz armies always fall with little effort to slinger skirmishing and light cavalry dominance way before the Sweboz can recruit heavy cav.
So while the Sweboz have the advantage in cheap troops with the 4 chevron Jugunthiz skirmishers and Chatti clubmen spam, the Gauls have a major edge in quality, from high armor Neitos/Arjos and superior light cavalry and the uber Gaesatae. One might also mention the Virodusios naked spearmen which is the cheapest fear/morale boost in the game, great at bolstering a line. So while the Sweboz have excellent cheap levies, the Gauls have the edge in quality. I might also mention the overrated Germanic warlord elite infantry, they are pretty good but side by side with Celtic lesser kings on Hard battle difficulty, I found that the Celt lesser kings outperformed my Sweboz warlords simply because of their large shields/superior armor gave them greater survivability against the ubiquitous javelin volleys. So people who adore German warlords should play Gauls, and try out a battle line of 5 or 6 units of Neitos heavy swordsmen flanked by Helvetian phalanx, the reality is that the Sweboz have great lethality across the board with the Heavenly Pillar of Tyr and 3/4 chevron levies, but due to their low armor they go down in droves to long range missiles (read sling bullets) and their cavalry is overpriced and underpowered and not even a match for leuke epos one on one due to the latter's greater javelin range and missile count, superior stamina, and AP high lethality spears.
So having pretty well mastered both factions, my advice is that if you want to crush the world with the Sweboz, forget about their cruddy low ammo archers and their overpriced no AP low lethality light cavalry, just build a T3 government and a temple of Tyr in a Celto-germanic city, and levy 4 chevron "Celto-Germanic" Leuke epos and slingers from the Celto-germanic cities to complement the Sweboz skirmisher/clubmen/spearmen hordes. With a T3 government its very easy to levy them at 3 or 4 chevrons, and 4 chevron slingers are far more lethal than Germanic archers, and much cheaper than Medjininkas, and Leuke epos is the most cost effective cavalry in north Europe bar none and at 4 chevrons they pretty well dominate any non-HA cavalry Europe has to offer.
Good post, Geticus!
I have to impose house rules on myself to stop winning battles so easily on medium battle difficulty. In a half-stack army of 10 units, I permit myself to have only one unit of slingers and only one unit of skirmisher light cavalry. This stops them dominating the battlefield - they can soften up the enemy, but the main part of the work still has to be done by line infantry, swordsmen and spearmen. My main use for slingers is as town garrisons - they are only allowed out to fight nearly rebels.
About the flaming arrows.
I only use them when defending in sieges.
Flaming arrows in field battles is IMHO just another vanilla absurdity.
Only slightly less silly than flaming pigs.
Certainly not something to use when playing a realism mod.
Precisely. It's just one more of those things one considers when writing up a set of boundaries in a tournament. I don't think it was considered last year, but it could be barred from use if people come to a consensus.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trax
Yeah I hear you, I suppose it depends on how you want to play. I like infantry slugfests but I find cavalry dominance to be very satisfying , and I think that ancient warfare tended to work that way at the higher level-- Assyrians and Egyptians were chariot dominant, Alexander raised Hellenic warfare to the next level with elite cavalry charge power, and Hannibal's supremacy in the field over the Romans was based on strategic mastery all around but above all IMO on cavalry superiority over the declining and increasingly mercantile Roman equestrian class. Numidian light cav played a big part. But beyond I suppose it's just the way my Gallic style developed, I originally wasn't interested in Leuke epos due to their low stats, but used them just to have some cavalry to mop up fleeing enemies. But eventually I ran two or three on one flank and started micromanaging the cavalry wing and found that their skirmish first-charge later worked real well at slowing down the enemy approach, it's a kind of missile trap with sling bullet rain from the front and light cavalry javelins from the flank and back, turn to face the Leuke epos and the slingers eat you alive, continue charging the slingers and my light cav shoot you down in the back, which is where the speed, maneuverability and missile count of the Leuke epos wins out. The other thing is to be able to "devour" isolated opponent troops by simultaneously charging them from 2 or 3 sides at the same time. This is pretty micromanagement intensive but the stakes are huge, because a well timed 2x or 3x cavalry charge can annihilate an enemy cohort in 5 or 6 seconds. Do this a few times on one flank and it leads to an easy win, and I find that AP high lethality chargers with very good stamina are the best at it, and Leuke epos are the kings in Europe. In fact I have done many battles, especially siege defenses, where I lead out an FM + 2 or 3 leuke epos against a Sweboz horde (2 or 3 thousand+ with no FM, lots of low tier levies, the usual Rhineland Sweboz spam) and wipe them all out by getting uphill of them, routing their cavalry (if any), charge/routing the archers whenever possible, and javelin skirmishing the infantry masses so that they are a little dispersed and tired, and devouring one isolated troop after another with 3 way triangular charges led by the FM with Leuke epos hitting flanks/rear. The morale loss from troops routing becomes contagious and the FM keeps trampling through one troop into the next and the Leuke Epos keep dive bombing the flanks, any tired infantry that come up to help out in the routezone get morale loss contagion and route pretty quick from FM contact and leuke epos flank/rear charge. At the end of the battle there are 2 or 3 thousand plus casualties all by cavalry since I don't have the patience to draw out the swordsmen and slingers against mostly low grade spam infantry. All this is just a lesser version of proper steppe tactics and in reality the kings of cavalry warfare IMO are Sarmatian warlords and Roxolani riders, but they are out on the steppes and their economy and infantry suck, so I find that Gauls have a good combination off all- decent heavy cav, good light cav, good economy, high lethality durable heavy infantry and cheap long range missile troops. So in Eurobarb warfare I see the Gauls having a small edge over the Sweboz, and if the Aedui/Arverni win the civil war in Gaul quickly and mobilize everything for a blitz on Rome, I see that war between Roma and Gaul as determining the superpower in west Europe. If the Gauls pillage Rome and wipe out the Romans completely by 257 or so I give them a slight edge to hold off the Casse and Sweboz, build supercities in Gaul and get Time of Soldiers by the mid 240s, and overpower all Europe with Neitos-Arjos-Helvetian phalanx-Gaesatae battlelines thereafter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Titus Marcellus Scato
Geticus if you can consistently pull that off, that is, the flawless intertwining of skirmisher cavalry and missile infantry on the multiplayer battlefield, I'm certain you would find yourself a line of men waiting to battle you! It sounds exciting.
I have an Aedui game going right now. The starting seems way less annoying than the Arveni starting for some reason.
Anyways, good advice, thanks. Those Leuce Epos and Celtic slingers are amazing, I already knew this from my Sweboz and Roman games.
I still think the gaul spearmen suck. I just use them as garrisons, to hold the line and to boost my numbers now, and they seem to work well enough so far against other gauls. Slingers, swordsmen and cavalry really do most of the work in my battles.
Thanks man, I was consistently at that level as of last December when I deleted the game, I played solo EB at a high level last year during a lot of professional downtime due to the depression here in the US, this was my game of choice most of last year until I in my opinion conclusively mastered the high lethality Eurobarb factions (I did not play Lusotannan). Though I am a Roman military historian I couldn't bring myself to play Rome since the Ped. Ex. and Campanian cavalry always bothered me, and the Polybian principes just seemed too damn good, and phalanx warfare on EB always bored me, I only cut phalanxes down, don't play them, so having pretty well played the Britons, Gauls, Sweboz and Getai at full tilt to factional victories a few times I finally quit playing and deleted the game. But EB is IMO the best tactical strategy game I have ever played, I really wonder if anything surpasses it in any genre, there is just so much historical and cultural content, and aesthetic quality, and too much intelligence packed into the game. My problem is that although I am a hardcore wargamer and play at a high level I am not all that computer literate. So I watched a lot of the tournament matches from Hamachi and enjoyed many of the matches but every time I stopped by the groups were full, and the reality is that a lot of people are playing there merely to set Cretans/sagitarii on autofire and the phalanx/hoplites/cohorts in defense mode and watch their opponents tire themselves out rather than proactively step forward and win. Very few of the many Hellenistic faction players actually use sarissa phalanxes offensively to any good effect. But if I pick the game back up I might check in with you or others and see if any one wants to get hewn down by longswords, routed by gaesatae and trodden under Celtic hooves ;) I might add that my slinger/leuke epos sandwich probably wouldn't work very well against Cretan spam and Sagitarii Auxilia, so against those types of MP players a regular infantry assault + flank surround/slaughter style would likely be necessary. If everyone on EB multiplayer played at a high level, that is all the battles would amount to, a big evolving oblique attack dominated by flank micromanagement. Defensive arrays in line would accomplish very little.Quote:
Originally Posted by vartan
But for army micromanagement the main thing for me was that I had a system for hotkeying eurobarb army groupings, which didn't vary too much between Celtic and Getai and Sweboz armies. So I always know what keys are for my left flank infantry, center infantry, right infantry, infantry reserves (if any), left and right cavalry wings (or sometimes light and heavy cav wings) and missile groups. Typically I'd just group all slingers into one mass of three or four at hotkey 7 but sometimes with Sweboz I'd have multiple archer and slinger groups. Getai I'd have horse archers in addition to Elite Dacian/Skythian archers, but IMO as long as one is very systematic in arraying the army and hotkeying groups, then that speeds up complex multivector movements. Aside from that I use a keyboard with a circular gaming keypad on it, and customized the EB tactical controls on it, which was very useful in rapid micromanagement;)
If I pick up the game again I might come around and look you up but right now I have pretty well whooped the gaming bug. I really overplayed EB last year and I hate the CTDs, I only played on huge unit size and had CTDs every 3-4 hours, often during battles in the late game, so though I consider EB to be the elite classical strategy game, I am pretty well burnt out on it.
Yeah using the base levy spearmen in the field is a great way to thin out your population, little more. Some people tout the virtues of Massilian hoplites, but for me the early line consists solely of Northern and Southern Gallic longswordsmen, preferably from Bibracte where the weaponsmithy is, with slingers skirmishing in front and then retreating through the line when the opponent closes, and the cavalry wing. FM typically is the sole reserve, just skirmish and dominate the flank with Leuke epos and/or swordsmen and get 'er done.Quote:
Originally Posted by Unintended BM
Personally I have always found leading Gaulic armies in EB to be a somewhat difficult task, and I think that EB has represented reality quite well, their line troops tend to be high damage-low morale mixtures (Northern and Southern Gaulic swordsmen especially) and they tend to excel when led by a good leader but are unreliable under the command of a green general. On the other hand their higher order troops, the solduros and gaesatae are extremely reliable and usually don’t rout unless the commander has horrible leadership skills.
My usual strategy for dealing with this handicap when using green generals against the Sweboz is to insure that there are plenty of slingers around, weaken their line as it approaches and then once they reach javelin range have all of your units open fire simultaneously, the sheer amount of casualties that it causes is staggering and the morale effect is immense, after such an attack a Sweboz battle line tends to rout just as quickly as a Gaulic one (the same tactic works wonders against other Gauls). Later in the game you’ll want to keep a few units of Gaesatae around just to scare your enemies senseless and to provide unparalleled infantry flanking forces, and I usually use Solduros in the center of the line as they are extremely hard to break, although sometimes I use them to insure that a flank holds though the casualties are noticeably higher. The other nifty trick is to hook your light skirmish cavalry around the enemy’s flank and sit behind them throwing javelins into their backs.
Similar tactics are effective against the Romans, though their armour is tougher so the javelins are less effective, your best chance against the Romans is to always have cavalry superiority and plenty of Gaesatae and if your general has high morale bonuses you can defeat just about anyone.
(sorry for any misspellings I’m writing this at 2AM)
A sound approach.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aodhan
Against the Romans I use more Teceitos and Tekastos, if available. Sadly the Gauls don't have a good access to AP infantry units, especially after the Soldiers reform where they lose Teceitos. In this regard, the Swêboz are actually better, since they have cheap and effective clubmen and, on top of that, easier (and more permanent) access to Teceitos than the Gauls themselves.
On my Aedui game, I just used a bunch of slingers and swordsmen against the Romans. Once I got farther down into Italy, I was able to get some good Samnite mercenaries, and some heavier cavalry. The Romans weren't really that hard. If I had waited longer until they got some reforms, I bet they would have been really tough though.
Yeah my invasion of Italy force is typically my FM, 7-9 Northern Gallic Swordsmen all with weapon upgrades, 4 slingers, and 1 or 2 curepos mercs. Northerns tend to take pretty heavy casualties vs. triarii and especially against pedites extraordinarii. So Southern Gallic Swordsmen reinforcements from Mediolanum play an increasing role in the line, and often comprise the majority of the line by the time I sack Roma, typically sometime between 258 and 254.Quote:
Originally Posted by Unintended BM
Polybian heavy infantry are good but if you postpone the Roman invasion and focus on Gaul, then you can deport populations to inner Gaul from conquered cities, the key is to get huge cities in central Gaul and trigger Time of Soldiers so that you can levy Neitos and/or Arjos. Gaulic Neitos are tough as hell, and in a solid line they are a match for anything the game has to offer. I have done custom battles, neitos properly managed are a match for just about anything including gaesatae, bastarnae etc. Gather a top quality stack with a center line of Neitos or Arjos and go after Diazenis and the other eleutheroi elites in central Europe, hard battle if you want a real challenge;)
I just finished all of Time of Soldiers MICs, and right when I did that, the Sweboz decided to attack. So basically, now I have a full stack of all my cool new units ready to conquer Germania. I already had one giant battle against the Sweboz, and I beat the crap out of them, which is to be expected, my army is pretty well overpowered with the best Aedui troops.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
See what I mean? Totally overpowered. I spent like 170k building up my armies. That army in the north heading toward Bagacos is a bunch of Belgic spearmen, swordsmen and cavalry. I also have a bunch of backup garrisons ready to resupply my main army if I ever lose too many guys, which doesn't seem likely. The only trouble I've had so far was against the Sweboz bodyguards, but a few cavalry charges on the flank took care of them pretty easily.
To kind of almost stay on topic, the later Gaul spearmen, the Gaelaiche, they're pretty decent, much better than the early spearmen. I guess Gaul morale isn't really a problem once you get going.
I am certainly glad to see teh Gauls in good order, but for players who mirror historic compositions, the Celts should only have around 6 units with chainmail, the rest would be 'normal' units.
You could have something like this:
1 Brihentin
1Argos
2 Neitos
1 Solduros
1 Mori Gaesum
The rest would be your Bataroeas, Botraos, Lugoae, slingers, Luece epos, axemen, etc... This would be the typical way I play with my own house rules, and the 20-30% mark is what the most historians agree upon. Some even less than this. Getting near accurate chainmail amounts for a Celtic army would be at the 20-30% mark, a bit less for a Briton army, and even less with a Sweboz army. Just an idea for some players. EB much funner this way and more rewarding after a victory.
Yeah that army should have a pretty smooth ride into Swebotraust as long as your FM has decent healing. That's as strong as it gets really, except that you don't have many chevrons. The only way you could improve much would be to levy with Stone temples of Teutatis and fields of games for more chevrons and maybe hire some Cretans in Italy. My typical royal army has the king or crown prince, 3 brihentin/leuke epos, 4 slingers, 7 neitos/Arjos, 4 helvetians/bataroas, 1 gaesatae or druid. Gaesatae are IMO so overpowered that I don't recruit them unless I have a Stone temple of Teutatis/Taranis in the city. FWIW in my experience the Carnute druid chant creates both positive morale for your own troops and causes fear in nearby opposing troops, and that fear stacks with gaesatae fear. So when both fears are in effect it is pretty easy to start a chainroute.Quote:
Originally Posted by Unintended BM
Interesting restrictions, in that case the Gauls are still in good shape since Leuke epos outclass brihentin in some respects, and Northern Gallic Swordsmen are very cost effective with proper chevron/weapon enhancement, and Belgae swords are among the best swordsmen in the game. I won't even mention Gaesatae the only infantry that can charge straight into elephants and cut them down.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power2the1
The Gaesatae are going to be powerful professional that they were in real life, bu charging into elephants and coming out on top is going to cease. They are overpowered in EB1, and while the stats in the EB2 build are provisional, the Gaesatae will not be able to take down whole armies or anything. My house rules are not to have more than 4 Gaesatae in any 1 army. Trust, its tempting to make more or an all Gaesatae army, but the victories you'd win with them would be hollow I would imagine.
Going back to the armor rates, the 15-20% for the Gauls would be maximum when you first start playing since warrior burials during this time, in real life, do not feature the same kind of iron amounts that would be found later. Time of Bondsmen and Soldiers is when you could ramp up the chainmail wearing units to 20-30% or so, and this is an estimate on the iron in warrior burials in those times. So as the reforms progress, afford yourself 1-2 more armored units than before, but no more than 6 or possibly 7, and you'll be playing close to how thing would have been. Also, in the last two reforms, think about having a bit more cavalry than you would have usually used before. The nobility and greater warriors would have increasingly turned to mounted combat after leaving the chariot. So with this in mind, Brihentin should increasingly be most of your chanimail units in the last two eras, faithfully representing the armored nobility and the 'kinghts', as Caesar called them. Again, just some tips for the player wishing to try the Gaulish hardcore history route.
Britons should have perhaps the second highest amount of chainmail wearers, but their nobles are chariot users, so they can substitute or be considered a 'chainmail wearing unit'. Perhaps in their 3 reforms, you could go with 2, 3, then 4, not including your chariots, but you should not have many of them either.
The Sweboz should have very little. Their B.C. time period was not marked with major advances in metalworking and production. I am thinking 2, maybe 3 units tops, even in the last reform as well.
This is how I play at least, and this should be rather close to historical occurrences in the military of the day that one would face.
Solduros and Gaesatae are both very overpowered. I had three units of Solduros take an entire town of Sweboz, and I only lost like 80 guys. As for the Gaesatae, if I put them up front in a battle and have them charge, most things will rout before I can get my other units to charge. It's good to hear that you're changing stuff around for EB II.
Nah, Mistophoroi Toxotai Kretikoi just need to focus fire on Gaesatae's thingies, and they'll be severely depleted, and a simple Hippeis charges can shatter them into submission (but when I using their fellow celts or sweboz, I always play gaesatae vs gaesatae, or gaesatae showered with Jugunthiz javelins...
Thank you, that is some very useful information for all those factions. I had hoped for something like this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power2the1
This probably means for Swêboz after the latest reform: one FM, one unit noble cavalry, one unit heavy infantry?
What about pikemen units? And BTW, are they gonna make it to EB II?
Solduros are one of the best units in Western Europe, which I guess isn't far from the historical truth. And it's not that difficult to counter them, if you use axemen or clubmen. The AI is dumb so it's no wonder you had so few losses.Quote:
Originally Posted by Unintended BM
Yeah, overpowered when fighting the AI is what I meant.
On a slightly unrelated note, I had one unit of Gaesatae rout during a battle with the Sweboz, and it was just fighting some random levy spearmen unit. It was very odd. The Gaesatae wasn't even that depleted, it still had around 100 guys in it.
On the other hand if a barbarian faction conquers and rules an ahistorically large empire, like the Sweboz conquering and ruling all Germania and Gaul at the same time, or the Gauls conquering and ruling all Gaul and Italy and Gallicizing the majority of Italy, and maybe adding Britain to the list, then one is controlling much greater economic resources than any historical Gallic/Swebian king ever did, and it is appropriate at that point to not limit oneself to historical examples since those historical kings controlled much weaker economies. The factional goals of non-Roman factions are to some extent ahistorical anyhow, especially if one includes "house rules" to vanquish the SPQR outright like I generally have.
No problem, happy to inform y'all on the overall plan for certain things. With your guess, that sounds about right for the Sweboz chainmailed units. The elite/professional Speutagardaz pikemen I personally keep to 5 units per army keeping in mind that the elites/professionals are not a large segments with an Iron Age European army, and never was really. The Sweboz and Celts would raid, of course, with their better troops, but in large armies, consisting of levies for campaigns (full stacks in the RTW sense), the levies and semi or non professional troops would certain outnumber the professionals and elites by about 3-to-1 and more. With a 20 unit limit in all the TW games, you have to work around that and try to give a accurate representation of the armies back then.Quote:
Originally Posted by athanaric
I am not apart of the Sweboz team, but I would say that from what I have seen there will be plenty of pikemen and spearmen to go around, especially as the javelin/spear armed warrior was much more common than those with swords.
As for the Solduros they will be restricted to a much smaller area in EB2, but retain their professional status as a force to be reckoned with.
True, however, the power would still have been helmd in the hands of the few, as with the Celts in the Late La Tene period. Large swaths of terrritory doesn't automatically equate with an all elite force. The Seleucids, for example, had a grat amount of territory, yet, the Royal Guard was a minority (20,000 iirc) when it came to facing large battles. Here we see settler units, archers, slingers, other levies, easterners, etc...such as what was found at Magnesia where the Royal Guard was much less than half of the total force assembled. Same goes for the Ptolemies calling up the settler phalanx (kleruchoi and katoikoi) only during certain times of emergencies. The great expense of maintaining a standing army was just vast, and most cultures, especially in Northern Europe, could not afford this year long. When a great danger loomed, then a levy was imposed upon the region, when that danger passed, the levies went back home and would not be called until a great need had for them had presented itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Geticus