EB news - Friday, March 11

[khelvan]

Greetings Europa Barbarorum fans!

I have just a short update for you this week, with a few new units.

First, we have the Briton Silurii Byrnai, modelled by Prometheus and skinned by Spartan Merc. The Byrnai (Spearmen) of the Silures are the basic foot soldiers of the fierce southern tribe. The Silures are a powerful tribe; disciplined, well trained, and brave.



Next we have the Thanuvaniya foot archers, modelled and skinned by Weirdshady. These foot archers almost certainly represented the poorer elements of the various infantry levies of Parthia. These men are skirmishers only and not inclined to close with enemy troops.




Finally, I want to throw you horse archer fanatics a little bone. Here we have Baktrian Dahae, Scythian Light Cavalry, Parthian Dahae, Sarmatian Aorsi Riders, and Steppe Cavalry. Steppe Cavalry: These light horsemen come from the Pontic steppe north of the Black sea. They are the Scythians, and for many a long year were the scourge of civilized nations everywhere.




Please note that unless stated otherwise, ALL pictures shown in our news posts are of works in progress. We continue to improve on all parts of EB, and will do so long after our initial release.

As always, if you have questions or comments, the best place to post them would be here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=70

Or here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php?showforum=60

You may find old news posts in these forums, including a preview of our new map:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=42840

We give special thanks to http://www.imageshack.us who provide us with a simple, foolproof, and free way to show you all these pictures each week.

Have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,

-the EB team

[Big_John]

cool! hey khel, on that first pic, you say the byrnai are members of a 'southern tribe'..
but what faction(s) do they belong to? i'm ignorant.

p.s. the various horse archers are quite pretty.
i will have fun hunting them down and destroying them with my germanic hordes.

edit: hey, i'm first.. what a great life i lead.

[khelvan]

Err, umm...you were supposed to guess based on the woad & shield patterns!!

(Seriously, the Britons. I have corrected this, thank you.)

[Drag0nUL]

Nice pics.Esp. the horse archers. However you give 5 names: Baktrian Dahae, Scythian Light Cavalry, Dahae Cavalry, Sarmatian Aorsi Riders, and Steppe Cavalry but only 3 pictures.So I was wondering which of these units does each picture represent.

[Crownsteler]

Great wirk again, Khelvan :)

Drag0nUl;
----------------------------------------------->
scroll to the right :)

[Idomeneas]

[jerby]

ok, so sarmatia and Scythia are represented. what faction is deleted? numidia is replaced by Bactria,
so Thrace has gone for Sarmatia? btw what is, in general, teh difference between the two?

[Big_John]

jerby, i think scythia was replaced by sarmatia. the scythian units may be regional units that are used by another faction (like sarmatia). but i'm not sure.

[Sarcasm]

Yes! More goodies for me.....*starts up Corel Draw...*

@ jerby

Baktria replaced Numidia, and the Sarmatia replaced Scythia. Thrace is still a playable faction, but might be considered for replacement. These Scythians are likely to be either regional units or Mercs.

But you would know this if you have read "The Lost Art of Keeping A Secret".

....I´m shameless


BTW Awesome job as always! Steppe Merc will be thrilled about this...Next updates you have to put some Iberians....(worth a shot..... )

[Steppe Merc]

Oh, I quite was Sarcasm... I loved em!
As for Scythian Sarmatia confusion, the Scythians can be recruited by those who control their lands. Steppe tribes were always fluid, and rather than dying out, many tribes either were absorbed into their conquer's armies or migrated. Thus, we have a few Scythian units as they certaintly didn't disappear!
The difference between Sarmatia and the former Scythia is really just tribes, and locations. At this time the Scythians were still around, but in serious decline. The Sarmatian were on the rise, and soon would conquer all of the Scythian's former terrotories. They have similar army types, but the Sarmatians were slightly less rich to begin with, and not as settled as the Scythians are at this time.

[Orda Khan]

Very nice again, as usual. I particularly like the gorytus and recurved bows!!!

....Orda

[tsyed]

Those horsemen look really sweet, but I had a suggestion/question.

Most of the pictures I've seen of Parthians and Scythians show them wearing that leather looking cap with the flaps on the ears. Should you be showing these horsemen wearing that? Also, would it be possible to use the basic Persian head for Sythian and Parthian units, but with lighter hair perhaps? These gaulish faces don't have the full beards which I understand the Scythians/Parhtians favoured.

[Sarcasm]

@ Khelvan

What´s the orientation between your unit names and the pics?

[Ignoramus]

If you replace Thrace, make the Goths playable in Sweden! It would be excellent1

[khelvan]

Left to right, top to bottom.

[Proper Gander]

nice work once again.

will the unit cards of the spearmen look like that in the final version?

[Angadil]

Those horsemen look really sweet, but I had a suggestion/question.

Most of the pictures I've seen of Parthians and Scythians show them wearing that leather looking cap with the flaps on the ears. Should you be showing these horsemen wearing that? Also, would it be possible to use the basic Persian head for Sythian and Parthian units, but with lighter hair perhaps? These gaulish faces don't have the full beards which I understand the Scythians/Parhtians favoured.

Ok, here are a few considerations regarding the looks of those units. In no particular order:

1) These units represent peoples from diverse groups of Iranian nomads. Not just Scythians or Parthians (in fact not one of them is "Parthian", in an ethnic sense).

2) The archetypical image of "Scythians" comes from the so-called Graeco-Scythian art from the shores of the Black Sea, mostly in the 4th and 5th ct. BC. It is, therefore, a bit of an snapshot, in space (European Scythians) and time. Moreover, artistic conventions play a role and Scythian appearance may have been standardized in those depictions so viewers could immediately tell who was a Scythian and who wasn't. Nonetheless, and even within these relatively narrow limits, you still find enough variation in the appeareance of "Scythians" including no facial hair at all and no headgear. When you expand to the other groups of Iranian nomads, you get still more diversity.

3) Those 5 units are not all the horse archers you can expect to see in EB

[The Stranger]

i think represnting scythians as a faction is wrong cause they where driven of the steppes by sarmatians and celtic tribes around 330 bc

[Angadil]

i think represnting scythians as a faction is wrong cause they where driven of the steppes by sarmatians and celtic tribes around 330 bc

In EB, Sarmatia is a playable faction and Scythia is not

That said and while, your statement is roughly correct, the Scythians were still a force of some importance at the date for EB's begining and, certainly, more so c. 330 BC, some 60 years before. In fact in 330/331 the Scythians were capable of annihilating a 30.000 strong (allegedly) Macedonian army under Zopyrion, governor of Thrace. There was an Scythian kingdom that held the western part of Crimea and some land along the lower course of the Dniepr river and that made it well into the ADs.

Additionally, most Celtic movement into the area did not occur as early as 330 BC and they mostly went south into the Balkans.

[Hakonarson]

Bactria is a faction?

How did you achieve this - have you extended the map? 'cos Bactria is several provinces off to the right of the current one - pretty much all the way to India!

Sarmatia was, of course, no more a single "faction" than Skythia - it never united, often served as mercenaries and allies of neighbours, and was mostly petty tribal based kingdoms - those in the Crimea & Black sea coast were mostly Roman clients.

[Byzantine Prince]

Yes the map has been extended all the way back to Pakistan(the Indus River). The provnices there will be pretty big though.

[Hakonarson]

Ah...now that IS good news!! :)

I look forward to this then!

wil the Bactrians be getting their pikemen? and will the Kushans make an appearance to replace them with "residual" "Greek" pikemen too??

Bactrians shoudl be fun - their army was apparently based upon remnant Seleucid pike, and local cavalry - which was mostly skythian - so lots of horse archers, but also quite a lot of heavy cavalry, up to and including cataphracts. Plus elephants :)

Their neighbours, the Indo-Greek cities further towards India combined pieks with Indian infantry - mainly archers, less cavalry but more elephants.

[Steppe Merc]

Angadil pretty much covered the aspects of the Horse Archers. But there will indeed be horse archers that reflect the Parthian lesser nobles that led the horse archers who were often reinforced with nomadic forces, which is what you see here. All of these could be considered mercanaries, or axuiallary as they were nomads who hired themselves off to their neighbors.
As for the Scythians, they were indeed around at this time, but not that powerful. All units with the names of Scythian are recruitable by all that control their steppe lands, as was in real life.

Sarmatia was, of course, no more a single "faction" than Skythia - it never united, often served as mercenaries and allies of neighbours, and was mostly petty tribal based kingdoms - those in the Crimea & Black sea coast were mostly Roman clients.

Well neither were the Gauls, the Britons, the Germans. But they were indeed a group of numerous tribes, the main ones who are representated in our game. As for the Roman clients, not at the beggining of the game, certaintly. And Sarmatians did have a very important role in history.

[jerby]

ok, so thrace will be a faction. but Macedon can recruit something like 'thracian-auxillia'. will that be done when macedon conquered their territory, or how else?

[The Stranger]

i hope you call them Sarmatian tribes rather then Sarmatia just like Scythian Tribes

[Steppe Merc]

Emporer, as a group of people they are all Sarmatians. Of course their tribes, but as are the Gauls, Germans, Britons, Iberians, etc.
Besides, their are many tribes in and out of history. That said, they were all Sarmatians. They should be called the Roxaloni, the Aorsi, and seperated into each tribe. But the game doesn't allow that. We work with what we have.

[Sheep]

Questions:

Are the credits for the Silurii correct? Prometheus and Spartan Merc? Sorry, don't want to insult anyone but this is the first I have heard of Spartan Merc and most of the other British units were done by Spartan Warrior. Typo?


Also, who made the horse archers?

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Questions:

Are the credits for the Silurii correct? Prometheus and Spartan Merc? Sorry, don't want to insult anyone but this is the first I have heard of Spartan Merc and most of the other British units were done by Spartan Warrior. Typo?

No typo. Spartan Merc is a skinner in EB.

Also, who made the horse archers?

The other Spartan you refered: Spartan_Warrior

[Sheep]

Good to know, I'll give them their proper credit in TLAOKAS.

[Sarcasm]

TLAOKAS.....has a nice ring to it....