Epirus

[Rodion Romanovich]

Combining Thrace and Dacia is not good, as they were very different. Thrace was a diadochi (sp?), remnant part of Alexander's empire, and thus had some phalanxes (and heavy cavalry to some extent), but also in combination with some more "barbarian-style" weapons, for example some falx-like scythe weapons I believe. Dacians on the other hand were never conquered by Alexander and thus never implemented the phalanx, but used the sword formations that the forest areas of middle and western europe had been using since the time of the first celts in Europe, WAAAAAY back. However, it's believed that these swordsmen learnt some tactics/technology from roman deserters and thus altered there fighting style somewhat to look more like the legion in some ways (however I haven't heard anything of pila or similar). When Trajan conquered Dacia the Dacians had some men equipped with long swords and some equipped with the wonderful falx. They also had onagers (technology presumed to come from roman deserters), and their cavalry isn't mentioned much. Because the Dacians had sarmatians and others as allies at the time, that doesn't reveal much about the cavalry, as almost any cavalry would have looked futile in comparison to the sarmatians (and therefore not mentioned in any texts), I assume. EB team probably knows more than me about the Dacian cavalry... Anyway, my point is that Thrace and Dacia have completely different fighting styles from 280 BC to year 0.

Besides, if you'd make Epirus a specific faction, then the rest of "Greek cities" wouldn't be much of a faction as Pyrrhus of Epirus was probably the most active Greek warlord at the time. As long as faction number is so limited the "Greek cities" is probably the best sollution, just like you have to make the gallic tribes "Gaul" and the German tribed "Germania" etc.

BTW, will the falxmen in EB be extremely armor piercing? I read that the falxmen forced the roman army to alter their helmets because, I assume, many legionarries got their half their heads pulled off by the falxmen.