Who Are Those Guys?!

[Flatulus Maximus]

I saw a little teaser video of RTW on one of the ORG's and in it, a band of very cool looking (Macedonian) troops that look like a cross between the Macedonian general and Greek armored hoplites, march out to confront a band of Julii Urban Cohorts who've just poured through a breech in the wall.

I thought the mystery Macedonians were Spartans initially because you can see their long hair hanging out of their wicked looking full face helmets. Spartan warriors were known to wear their hair long. Has anyone else seen this video short? I've been playing the Macedonians for a while and am sure these guys don't exist for my faction. Maybe this was cut from a modded battle?

Any clues?

[Gith]

Maybe royal pikeman? Just a guess.

[Krusader]

I believe they were Macedonian Armoured Hoplites, which probably were dropped by CA.

The video you must be talking about is the Greek Battle vid? With Scipii and Julii troops?

[Flatulus Maximus]

Right you are Krusader. I thought they looked a lot like the Greek armoured hopelites. It's a pity they were dropped, but I'll try modding them for Macedonia.

[Ziu]

Is it possible they are the alternative Peloponnesian-era Spartan Hoplite

[Barbarossa82]

The screenshots from Totalwar.com show several units/graphics which don't appear to have made it through to the final game:
1) Black-robed troops with black helmet crests and short spears, forming phalanx. Have full enclosed Greek-style helmets. Possible early design for Macedonian Royal Pikemen?
2) A Macedonian-style flag where the symbol is not the inverted V (capital Lambda), but a letter A (capital Alpha). Standing for Alexander?
3) Roman (Scipii) cavalry with triarii-style helmets and cloaks
4) Bareheaded Egyptian spearmen looking like Carthaginian/Numidian skirmishers, but forming ranks with spears. They carry square shields with an Ankh symbol.
5) Egyptian phalanx spearmen (look to be carrying spears rather than pikes) wearing a black version of the Egyptian "Blue crown" or "War crown", black body armour and sand-coloured kilts. Possible early design for Pharaoh's Guard?
6) Macedonian troops with fully enclosed Greek-style helmets and large round sheilds bearing the four orange dots. Carry pikes. These are not a front view of (1), because they have no robes. These are the blokes with the long hair. Possible early design for Macedonian Phalanx Pikemen?
7) Lame-looking Seleucid pikemen with little armour, carrying octagonal shields with Seleucid Empire insignia.

With the exception of (7) and possibly (3), all these units look great, especially the Macedonians. Let's hope they get released at least as alternative skins, if not as distinct units!

[Barbarossa82]

Come to think of it, has anyone been able to get hold of any of these skins? There are some mods posted at twcenter which look like they were based on them. Maybe they are in the game somewhere as redundant files. The Macedonian ones in particular look much better than the official macedonian units.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Maybe they are going to be released as alternate units because CA did not have the time to fully polish them? They sound really cool...

[Kraxis]

Plenty of the mentioned units were dropped long ago. The screenshots are old old. Some have merely been converted to other skins and such, others have truly vanished.

#4 I believe is the Cleruchs (another dropped unit) on foot.

Other units that has been lost are for instance the Eastern Heavy Spearmen, who even were featured in TC. They actually looked rather well, and would have been a very nice addition to the Seleucids instead of regular hoplites, and they would have been perfect for the Armenians and Pontus.

[Krusader]

@Kraxis:

The Armenians have the Heavy Spearmen unit. In campaign you need the City Barracks to get them. They are the only phalanx unit Armenia has, and are okay enough.

Btw, believe Pontus didnt get them since they already have Phalanx Pikemen & Bronze Shields (kick-ass troops)

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Yes the Armenians do have heavy spearmen. They are inferior when compared to other spearmen and heavy infantry but the Armenians do not have much infantry so for them the spearmen are probably a valuable resource when used correctly.

[Arrowhead]

They might be judean zealots...

[lars573]

Kraxis, the Egyptian Cleruchs weren't dropped just re-skinned a bit and re-named nile cavalry. Arrowhead, Judean zealots, which I have battled, have the same model and skin as the numidian desert spearmen. Also those mystery hoplite in that movie are agrma phalaganites (SP) which were going to be the greek generals body guard. Yes that's right the greeks were originally going to have infantry for the generals bodyguard.

[Krusader]

Would be cool if Greeks and perhaps Gauls and Germans also had infantry bodyguards.

Would suit fluffwise, but they would might be at a disadvantage against cavalry.

[Arrowhead]

Kraxis, the Egyptian Cleruchs weren't dropped just re-skinned a bit and re-named nile cavalry. Arrowhead, Judean zealots, which I have battled, have the same model and skin as the numidian desert spearmen. Also those mystery hoplite in that movie are agrma phalaganites (SP) which were going to be the greek generals body guard. Yes that's right the greeks were originally going to have infantry for the generals bodyguard.

OK OK! Whoa, It was just a guess!

[Kraxis]

@Kraxis:

The Armenians have the Heavy Spearmen unit. In campaign you need the City Barracks to get them. They are the only phalanx unit Armenia has, and are okay enough.

Btw, believe Pontus didnt get them since they already have Phalanx Pikemen & Bronze Shields (kick-ass troops)

Yeah talk about feeling foolish when I faced them...

[jerby]

hey,

alexander had elite inf. troops 'shieldbarers' so that might be them, would be nice for macedon to have them, it would be a major faction for sp.

might be cool for greeks/seleucids/macedonians to have a phalanx-bodyguard.
and with the royal-palace improve them to cav.

by the way, in can't upgrade my bodyguards. why?

[lars573]

jerby they do have them, there called royal pikemen instead of their proper name Hypaspists. Also the generals bodyguard thing is broken and needs patching.

[Es Arkajae]

Well if you guys look at those black and red pictures that appear in the battle loading screens you may notice one of the elephant pictures (the one with the Velite guy being thrown) you can see one of the riders in the mahout (sp?) (the basket thingie on top of the elephant) is raising a javelin to throw.

I can see one reason why they may have gotten rid of it though, afterall you'd feel pretty stupid if one of your elephant units managed to start killing itself with misthrown javelins, well my theory anyway.

[jerby]

would have been nice to have a javelin throwing mahout. in the basket there is enough room for a lot of javs. so war eles woudl ahve jav and armoured bow's, gives teh armoured a reason to be there, since it is now a minor upgrade to war ele's