About Hic Est Lacedaemon

WHAT

This mod is based on DimeBagHo's excellent mod of RTW, XGM or Extended Greek Mod, and aims to go even further in developing the Hellenistic factions and providing my own interpretation of historical accuracy with hopefully keeping it a playable, interesting and enjoyable gaming experience.

With that in mind their are some unique features that have been included and as far as I know some have not been included in any other mod.

  1. A Spartan playable faction replacing Numidia.

  2. A unique Spartan culture including portraits and buildings

  3. Script inc 4tpy, garrison generation, Galatian invasion, Spartan Cleomenic Revolution, Pyrrhus and Ptolemaic subsidies

  4. Redesigned Settlements

  5. Macedonians, Seleucids and Egyptians allowed to build barbarian colonies and recruit up to level 1

  6. the Egyptian culture is now a post Alexandrian Macedonian/Hellenistic culture comprising the new states of the Diadochi + Epirus.

  7. New mercenary barracks to simulate the mercenary recruiting grounds of Taenarum, Aspendum, Apamea, Ephesus etc. requiring a port and a market.

WHY

My rational in producing this mod was originally just to create a playable Spartan faction for personal use only and as someone new to modding RTW this seemed for me sufficient but I was persuaded, although it didn't take much, to expand my horizons to a full mod with all that entails from mapping to skinning and text modification.
 But where should I start, which modification should I use to base this on. I chose to look at 3, RTR PE, EB and XGM and although all three are excellently crafted mods I chose XGM because as well as being a stable mod, it looked simpler to modify and it ran more quickly and smoother than the other two on the limited functionality of my laptop.
However for my purposes it had one problem and that was because the Mundus Magna map covered too much of the world for me to get sufficient detail into the Greek Homeland. I came across the Barebones 3.1 map which cut much of the Seleucid eastern regions out and looked just the ticket for my needs. Though its geography and terrain isn't totally accurate it is still an excellent starting point for any new modder.
Using this I was able to go into much more detail generally and in Greece in particular.

  1. The Greek coast line and terrain although not perfect are looking a little more accurate on the strategic and battle maps although the battle maps still look like you are fighting in the sea of tranquility at times.

  2. There are many new Greek cities inc. Olympia, Delphi, Mantinea, Argos, Sicyon, and Megalopolis.

  3. Some new factions like the Aetolian and Achaean Leagues, Epirus, Galatians and the Illyrians. replacing the rebel factions.

  4. As it is off the map Bactria has been replaced

  5. The Dacians replace the Thracians as Thrace was not an independant state until the end of the 3rd century

  6. I have also removed the Iberians as a faction being a disunited and uncooperative people at this time. This also applies to the Germans, however there seems to be some pressure to include them although I have been contemplating introducing the Bastarnae

The reason for concentrating more detail on the Greek regions was to try and emulate the problems of unity that the Greeks faced, first in opposition to Macedonia and secondly to Rome and thirdly to limit the expansion options of the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues and of course Sparta. Hopefully if you play any one of these small players of the Hellenistic World you may get to see some of the problems they faced in historic reality.

This mod will be able to be run on any of these flavours of RTW ;

  1. BI

  2. Alex, for preference, although shield wall and hording are not available the AI strategically and tactically is improved and it has other features that commend it to me.

WHERE and WHEN

The Historical Setting is the Hellenistic world 280 BC, Pyrrhus has brought his seasoned professional army to the aid of Tarentum against the barbarians of the Roman Republic who have to keep an eye on the Gauls in northern Italy. To the South West Carthage controls most of Sicily and is poised to exploit the Iberian peninsular. To the north the Gauls and the Germans are quiet for now. In the east the Seleucids vie with the Ptolemies ovev Syria and Asia Minor while the fledgling kingdoms of Armenia and Pontus protect their independence. In the unknown steppes to the north the Samartians gather to visit destruction on the civilised world. While the civilised world itself is about to be surprised by the Galatian hordes and bring chaos to the Hellenic World. Ptolemy Ceraunus has usurped the throne of Macedonia defeated Antigonus Gonatas who has retired to his southern fortresses of Central Greece and the Peloponnese. But the Greek City States are not quiescent and are about to throw off Macedonian domination. One of these under their young king Areus of Sparta, with pretentions of being a Hellenistic King and with a little egyptian money, is ready to lead the Greek States to 'freedom'.

The Spartan Hoplite in this mod is not the killing machine of a certain recent film but he still is a formidable opponent if supported properly. he is expensive to produce and takes a longer time to train (attempt to simulate a dwindling citizen base). Sparta will have to fall back on the cheaper and more numerous perioici, freed helots and mercenaries. Sparta is surrounded by enemies, short of men and money. The key as before is Messenia.

Antigonos Gonatas does not control the Macedonian homelands, they have been usurped by Ptolemy Ceraunus. he does possess though the "fetters" Corinth, Chalcis and Demetrius.

The Seleucid dominions stretch from the Aegean to Media and beyond, it is a difficult empire to control but they have plenty of money and resources but many areas are prone to disaffection.

The Ptolemies have expanded onto the southern coast of Asia Minor including Cyprus and have recently taken Coele-Syria from the Seleucids. they have money and a large fleet.

The Achaean league has only just been formed from the cities of Achaea proper. it will take a statesman of Aratus' stature to widen the league to the rest of the Peloponnese. In the meantime it must survive as best it can.

The Aetolian league has already embarked on its expansion drive with the inclusion of Heraclea-Trachina and is casting envious glances towards the control of Delphi and Thessaly. The Aetolians like the Cretans were of a piratical nature taking from friend and foe alike.

Pyrrhus has begun his Italian adventure, his capricious nature will take him to other adventures but in the meantime he is jousting with Rome for control of Magna Graecia.

Rhodes and Pergamum are lumped together in a loose alliance, Pergamum de jure is a part of the Seleucid dominions but de facto has become almost autonomous on the death of Lysimachus. Rhodes is a trading city and is allied to the Ptolemies at this time. In the next century these two states will benefit from the demise of the Seleucids in the west.

Rome is bound for a united and Roman Italy driving out Gauls and greeks alike. The Roman Legions have yet to meet a professional hellenistic army but one is knocking on its door. Rome has lots of money, a large population and a low maintenance army, individually not the best and may suffer defeats but is quite capable of winning the last battle. The riches of Spain may be the key to a great empire but Rome must eventually deal with its possible rival Carthage.

Carthage controls much of north africa and has footholds in Spain and Siciliy. Sicily is a prosperous land and is vital as a springboard to enter mainland Italy. The other route is to control the riches of the Iberian peninsular and cross the alps into the north italian plain. A naval invasion is another possibility, carthage is a maritime power. Its army is mostly recruited from mercenaries and libyans, the carthaginian citizen prefers trade to soldiering.

Pontus and the Armenians are fledgling kingdoms, nominally vassals of the Seleucids but in fact quite independent. They will need some careful nurturing in the early years.

A Gallic people subsequently to be known to us as the Galatians are about to terrrorize the Greek Homelands, they are a hardy people the tall stature, fanatical bravery, broad limbs and unconcern for wounds will prove a surprise to the Hellenistic armies.

WHO

Thanks to DimeBagHo for his well crafted mod and for answering my silly questions in TWC forums and to all others who aided me or Solo1906 with advice and answers.

Thanks  to my partner in this adventure into modding, Solo1906, for his work on textures, skins and portraits etc.

Thanks to ATG and Ferres for their work on XGM and hopefully for their allowing us to use these in the release of this mod. For this permission I shall ask and hope to receive before the public release of this mod.

Thanks to IceTorque for his Barebones map and as he wishes this modified map will be open source and public property.

Thanks to Myrddraal for his 4tpy script which I used as the basis for this one.

Thanks to Makayane for her help and ability to generate a tutorial out of thin air.

Credit to DarkFenrir for his models

Credit to Sleigher for his models

Thanks to Halie Satanus for his instruction, model and willingness to help

Thanks to SignifireOne and Drak for their input and previous work on settlements which inspired the making of our own.

Thanks to SPQR for paving the way for our forts - thanks for the ground work!

NOTA BENE

The "special" settlements in the game are meant to be representations of accuracy up to 60-65% - and have been designed within the parameters and limits of vanilla settlements to reduce work and so that they could be finished for inclusion.

All settlement plans have been re-designed - they are not 100% flawless - there may be the odd tree growing up out of the corner of a building - this happens when - all settlements were made WITHOUT - 3dsmax only using the coordinates as a mapping system. The effort has been to create some variety between cultures, a better battle environment and to get rid of the Prison System - labyrinth style settlements that existed in the vanilla game. The reason for this was to move some of the Total War of Rome past just being total war and include some sense of adventure to it all.

ADDENDA

Unit sizes

I have rationalised the several unit sizes, mainly to make it easier to calculate pay and perhaps make the AI choice of unit to recruit more reasonable by comparing "apples with apples". Infantry units are as follows ; skirmishers  36, light and medium 48, heavy 48 excluding pike and all barbarian non skirmish infantry at 60 at the normal scale. Cavalry are at size 24 except Scythians who are at 30. Elite Infantry size is 36.

pay

Barbarians except mercenaries fight for rations only, Elite units get double pay
Galatians and Scythians fight for plunder only

Irregular guard cavalry get normal (regular) cavalry rate

UNIT per man per day obols
  rations  pay
Regular Cavalry 8 8
Irregular cavalry 8 6
Hoplites and Greek Pike 4 4
Pikemen regular (macedonian) 3 3
Thurophoroi 3 3
Skirmisher 2 2 2/3
Heavy Infantry 4 5
Light Infantry 2 3
Irregular infantry 2 2
Greek mercenary 3 3
Elephant (one) 16 8
Chariots (20) 16 4

equipment cost

some examples of cost, all costs in Mina unless stated, per 1000 men or 1 Elephant or 5 Chariots

UNIT weapon armour shield mount
skirmisher cavalry 30   0 30 Talents
Heavy Cavalry 40 5 Talents 0 60 Talents
Cataphract 40 10 Talents 0 60 Talents
Hoplite 40 5 Talents 40  
Thureophoroi 30+40 3 Talents 30  
Skirmisher 30   0  
Heavy Infantry 30+40 8 Talents 30  
Slinger 10   0  
Archer 30   0  
Pikeman regular 50 3 Talents 30  
Elephant 30     6 Talents
Chariot Heavy 30     10 Talents

training periods by type of unit & class for calc of unit cost

type of unit A B C D E
irregular 6 4 3 2 1
regular 6 6 6 3 -
veteran 12
2 arms 4
3 arms 5
4 arms 6

Pay & Maintenance notes

Mercenaries were normally paid only ten months of the year, taking the first and last months as unpaid leave but as we cannot simulate this we shall take it they will be paid the whole year.

The unit of pay has been changed from the denari to the mina, this was an accounting unit, Hellenistic soldiers were normally paid in obols/drachma, (for my purposes I have chosen to base the pay on the Attic Obol) in 2 parts. Firstly there was pay received in actual coin of the realm usually paid in arrears at month end but more often than not paid late, and secondly maintenance This had to be paid on time or a soldier, particularly a mercenary would spend most of his time foraging, desert, mutiny or murder his general. This could be paid in kind or the monetary equivalent. Troops were expected to feed themselves from their pay, buying food from sutlers within the army.

I have taken for my yardstick for the 3rd century BC the agreement between the Aetolian League and the Acarnanians in 270 BC. It was agreed that cavalry would be paid at 16 attic obols per day, a hoplite 8 attic obols, a peltast 6 attic obols and a skirmisher 4 2/3 attic obols. This translates for game purposes for example to 200 mina for a hoplite unit of maximum size. For actual cost of creating a unit, we know that a hoplite panoply cost around 30 drachma, thus the equipment cost for the unit would be 60 mina. As well as the panoply cost I have assumed for regular troops an ephebic training period of 6 turns. Thus 60 + 1200 = 1260.

We know that the highest paid man in a Macedonian phalanx at the time of Alexander was a 4 stater per month man (40 drachma) also known as a double pay man, so we will assume  that the lowest rank got 2 staters and the middle 3 staters. We will translate this into game terms as levy, regular and elite pikemen.

Mercenary pay is another vexing question but I have based my calculations on Griffiths and Parke. An inscription from Cos states that a mercenary (I assume infantry) got 16 drachma per month (Rhodian) a little more than 3 obols a day, but this must mean pay only, exclusive of  provisions. So lets assume double inc provisions. The conclusion is that the difference in the rate of pay between citizen and mercenary narrowed during the 3rd century from 6 to 8 obols per day. An agreement between Perseus and his allies the Achaeans called for the Achaeans to pay his mercenaries at the average rate of 3 obols per day or a composite pay of 6. As this was an average and the mercenaries were probably barbarian the common soldier got around 5 obols.

The pay for native Barbarians is pure guesswork, I have assumed they fought for provisions only and the prospect of loot.

Did Spartan Hoplites get pay? Probably not in this period, definitely not in the classical period. They also very likely provisioned themselves from their mess allotment. So in the game they have high recruitment cost to simulate the dwindling citizen population and low maintenance. 

In early Roman times values were estimated in terms of sheep or oxen and it was not until 289 BC that the mint was established. Similar to the Sparta iron spit they issued a bronze bar weighing 6 lbs and a circular 1 lb asses was also minted. It wasn't until the war with Pyrrhus that silver coinage was minted and widely accepted at home and abroad. The 2nd Punic War saw the weight of the ass decline steeply and in 211 BC a radical change was made with the introduction of a new silver denarius valued at 10 asses. By this time the ass had declined from 453gm to less than 1/2 of a gramme. We shall take the introduction of the denarius as our base for working out the pay of a Roman Miles. For comparison purposes one denarii was the rough equivalent of 1 attic drachma,

Originally soldiers had served without pay but since the long siege of Veii at the beginning of the 4th C BC a Roman infantryman received 2 obols per day + a ration of corn each month. A cavalryman received 6 obols and a ration of wheat and barley. The reforms of Marius reduced the property qualifications to serve, pay was introduced enabling each Roman citizen to supply his own equipment. Each citizen therefore with property to the value of 400 denarii was obliged to serve. prior to this according to Polybius a Triari had to have property worth 1,000 denari.

The Roman soldier's pay began with the viaticum which recruits received upon joining. Some records still exists for recruits joining the auxiliary forces, who received 3 aurei (75 denarii). There is no definite evidence for the legions, but it is largely assumed that the viaticum for joining the legion was the same amount. At least until the time of emperor Septimius Severus, it is believed that the viaticum remained at the level of 75 denarii.
As for the regular pay of the Roman soldier, it is unknown if any amounts might have been compulsorily deducted for rations, equipment and various purposes.
The situation changed from time to time and with gradual inflation the pay progressively increased.
Basic facts are few and far between. Caesar doubled the daily pay of legionaries, meaning 225 denarii a year. When Augustus left in his will 300 sestertii (75 denarii) to all legionaries this was a third of the annual amount and most probably indicates that the troops were paid three times a year and Augustus merely added an extra pay-day.
The basic rate remained unchanged until Domitian, who increased it from nine to twelve gold pieces a year (i.e. to 300 denarii) In spite of the steady inflation during the second century, there is no further rise until the time of Severus who increased it to 500 denarii a year.

Therefore the pay prior to Caesar was the equivalent of 68 obols per month .This gives us a total for the unit of 34 drachma/turn* max unit size = 8160 drachma or 82 mina. We will assume Roman cavalry got 3 times what a foot soldier got.

A humble foot soldier in the auxilia received about 100 denarii a year. Auxilia cavalry were better paid than a legionnary.

Marius removed the property qualifications to widen the recruitment base. But for pre-Marian units for recruitment costs if we arbitrarily take one tenth of the property qualification as the actual cost of raising one soldier we get a cost of 1000 drachma for the first class of infantry and 2400 mina per unit. Prior to the reforms there were 5 classes, the property qualifications being 10,000 asses down to 2,500 of the 5th class. For Marian era troops, the cost is the cost of equipment (as hoplite 30 drachma) for max size unit + salary * training period. Therefore 30 * 240 = 72 mina + (8 * 192) = 1608

Notes on troop types

Hypaspists

In addition to the pezhetairoi there existed an elite formation of hypaspistai or shieldbearers. These men can almost certainly be identified with the so-called argyraspides or silvershields from the later part of Alexander's reign. The hypaspistai numbered three thousand men organised in three subunits of each a thousand soldiers. Although constituting a picked force among the Macedonian infantry one of these battalions, the agema, had a higher prestige than the other two. A modest number of somatophylakes were recruited from among the Macedonian nobility were attached to the hypaspistai , which were selected among those of common birth.
Without doubt the hypaspists are the most mysterious units of the Macedonian army. Historians still lack clues about what they exactly looked like and how they were armed. Adding to the controversy are the various names attached to them: Guards, Shield-Bearers and, after the invasion of India, Silver Shields (or argyraspids; their origin is equally disputed).
What is certain is that the hypaspists were outstanding infantry troops who were capable of performing a wide range of tasks. During battles they served in close combat as an extension of the phalanx, protecting its right flank, and they were also well equipped for skirmishing, fast marches, storming walls and rapid advances supporting the cavalry. Common sense indicates the hypaspists must have been, in one way or another, a flexible and mobile adaption of the original Greek hoplite. Philip had developed the hypaspists from his original body of Foot Guards. When Alexander crossed into Asia the hypaspists numbered 3,000 men divided in three divisions, one of which was the élite unit, the Royal Foot Guards or agema. This agema unit had the same role as its cavalry counterpart.

The term "Hypaspists" which first appears in the reign of Philippe II had replaced the somatophylakes and they were indicated in the official terminology under the name royal hypaspists or the agema of Hypaspistes.
 
According to Arrian, Hypaspistes became argyraspides at the time of the expedition to India. However, some mention is made with regards to the resumptions of the existence of Hypaspistes in the armies of the seleucids. On the other hand, no mention is made about Hypaspistes at Raphia or Magnesia.

Bar-Kochova in his work on the Seleucid Army suggests that the Royal Guard of the argyraspides ('silver shields') numbered 10,000 foot between the battle at Raphia 217 BC and the parade at Daphne 165 BC, whereas the 'crack force' of the hypaspists was a picked part of the argyraspides and numbered 2,000 foot. Therefore the ordinary argyraspides formed two of the largest Seleucid units called strategoi of 4,000 foot each, thus leaving two chiliarchies of 1,000 foot for the assault troops of the hypaspists.
This would seem to indicate that the Hypaspists of the Alexandrian age had come to mean an elite force within the Argyraspides.

The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica describes the Agema Foot Guards as "the most noted corps of veterans, Argyraspides (i.e. the royal Hypaspistae) who played a great part in the first wars of the successors, and covered themselves with infamy by their betrayal of Eumenes."
"When Alexander crossed into Asia the hypaspists numbered 3,000 men divided in three divisions, one of which was the élite unit, the Royal Foot Guards or agema. This agema unit had the same role as its cavalry counterpart."

The royal foot-guards are still described in Macedonia in 171 as the agema (Polyb. V. 25, 1~ 27, 3; Liv. xlii. 51), when they number 2000; at the Ptolemaic court in 217 the agema had numbered 3000 (Polyb. v. 65, 2); and a similar corps of Hypaspistae is indicated in the Seleucid army (Polyb. vii. 16,2; Xvi. 18,7). So too the old name of Companions was kept up in the Seleucid kingdom for the Macedonian cavalry (see Polyb. v. 5~, 4, &c.), and divisions of rank in it are still indicated by the terms agema and royal squadron (see Bevan, House of Seleucus).

Notes on factions and their unit recruitment

My guides to what should be included and what should not can be found basically in the modern works of Duncan Head "Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars" and various DBM Army Lists. Sometimes I have allowed myself a little latitude to hopefully make it more interesting for certain factions by accepting some of the more controversial developments and using a certain amount of liberal thinking.