Which factions has units most similar to the Persian Empire?

[cmacq]

2500 years ago, it was. Now it's about a mile and a half wide, IIRC; sedimentation has built up the shoreline over the years.

Not sure how the maps are made but if people are working off of modern atlases/satellite pictures this could have something to do with it.

please read

The Pass at Thermopylae, Greece
John C. Kraft, George Rapp, Jr., George J. Szemler, Christos Tziavos, Edward W. Kase, in Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Summer, 1987), pp. 181-198

[Cyclops]

Thermopylae IRC was fought by Spartans holding a wall, with 300 of their own elites (in EB terms KH General's Bodygyuard inf)

The overall force was about 4000 men, including 400 Corinthians, 400 Thebans and IIRC Thespians as well as a gaggle of freed helots-skirmishers I guess. The Helots, Thespians and the treacherous Thebans stayed to the bitter end with the 300).

The Free Greeks held the wall against the Persian's forces rotating in the line to keep fresh, and descended from time to time to wreak havoc on their attackers. Once the flank path was carried the Free Greeks split, and the remnant drew up on the mound, which is (I guess) the phase depicted on the RTW map.

*edit: I just checked, the Spartans and Thespians retreated to the mound after Leonida's death: I still think they drew up inside the pass rather than atop the wall once surrounded *

A "realistic" Thermopylae would need to be scripted out the wazoo: a frontal assault on a wall, followed by Persian flank reinforcements (causing half the Greeks to break).

For a "realistic" end-game Thermopylae, you could have a max experience KH General (=the 300), one reasonably beefy Hoplite unit (=the Thebans/Thespians) and one unit of basic skirmishers(=the Helots). On the other side a huge force of Archer-spearmen/patopidae/Indian spears etc etc, one or two cav suggested above (not used much in this battle) and a unit or two of powered up (maxed?) Parthian spear to represent the remanants of the Immortals or Medes.

Although the Persian forces would only represent a fraction of the whole army, they would convincingly represent that fraction worth wasting on a mere holding action. House rule could be you gain a Convincing victory if you rout the Spartans hand-to-hand, marginal victory if you shoot 'em to death, and if the Persians rout, well, you know there are another 10 stacks queued up to bury the Spartoi but they have acheived their heroic victory condition of "sharing their culture all morning".

[Kurulham]

EB starts only 208 years after the most famous Battle of Thermopylae.

I know, my point is that if the in-game map doesn't match the historical terrain they might be basing it on the modern terrain, which is significantly different.

please read

The Pass at Thermopylae, Greece
John C. Kraft, George Rapp, Jr., George J. Szemler, Christos Tziavos, Edward W. Kase, in Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Summer, 1987), pp. 181-198

I had a response to this but then I calmed down. Instead I'll just point out that I live on a military base in Japan and as such do not have access to the Summer 1987 issue of the Journal of Field Archaeology.

[cmacq]

I know, my point is that if the in-game map doesn't match the historical terrain they might be basing it on the modern terrain, which is significantly different.


I had a response to this but then I calmed down. Instead I'll just point out that I live on a military base in Japan and as such do not have access to the Summer 1987 issue of the Journal of Field Archaeology.

Indeed....

Θερμοπύλες or Θερμοπύλαι, Thermopylae in english or 'hot gates', the use of 'gates' meaning narrow passages (not one but three; west, middle, and east gates), and 'hot,' because there are several hot springs therein (between the west and middle gates, complete with a small marsh). Generally the pass runs west to east (not north to south) connecting Θεσσαλία and Λοκρίδα. Gulf of Malis to the north and Trachinian cliffs to the south. Although, the cliffs and hills were steep, they were also covered with very thick vegitation.

see

http://www.battle-of-thermopylae.eu/gallery.html

The Spercheius River, located a short distance to the west, runs into the Malis. The channel use to parallel the coast but a new course cuts almost due north of the west gate. The fact that hot springs are present indicates geological uplift. Between the Spercheius' silting, geothermal related uplifting, and several cycles of global climate change, over time has filled the bay extending the shore line more than a km to the north.

looking from east to west, see this;

http://www.livius.org/a/battlefields...hermopylae.JPG

see the road bed, just to the left, that's about where the 5th century shore would have been, klear?

At the time of the famous battle the shoreline was very uneven, dropped several meters to the waters of the Malis, and each gate or pass was very narrow (less than 100 meters wide, each). The middle gate was the pass defended, as here was the Phocian Wall.

The combination of marsh associated with the hot springs, as well as west and middle gates were the real problem for the Persians as these bottlenecks made withdrawals from engaging the Phocian Wall defenders impossible when counter attacked.

And then there is the reported site of the last stand

http://www.battle-of-thermopylae.eu/gallery.html

Again, I hoped that even the most casual observer, would not misconstrue my subtle nature. More questions?

[Sakkura]

I had a response to this but then I calmed down. Instead I'll just point out that I live on a military base in Japan and as such do not have access to the Summer 1987 issue of the Journal of Field Archaeology.

Lol, really?

I was wondering, does anyone know if history and archaeology have a website that collects peer-reviewed publications, like PubMed (see link) does for medicine, biochemistry etc.?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=PubMed
Every article has a publicly available abstract; a few have the full text available online for free, while most have the full text available online requiring a subscription to the journal in question.

[cmacq]

I was wondering, does anyone know if history and archaeology have a website that collects peer-reviewed publications,

not sure for history, but as for archaeology, not a single website

Every article has a publicly available abstract; a few have the full text available online for free, while most have the full text available online requiring a subscription to the journal in question.

i looked and in this case, yes

see

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=009...3E2.0.CO%3B2-V

Kurulham
don't get mad... get smart