Beginning Scenario-ing

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by fairline
Sounds good - I'd add Numidian cavalry to the Liby-Phoenician phalanx and also Carthaginian light troops and Sacred Band. Not sure to what extent Iberian troops were used in the First Punic War but they were the backbone of later Carthaginian armies of course.

Carthage had colonies in Iberia at the time, and it was a recruiting ground even before they conquered most of it in the second punic war. Also, I've read that the Sacred Band was disbanded by then, but sources seem to disagree. I've considered making them the 90-defense unit that keeps Carthage from ever being taken.

Personally I'd stick to having velites, hastati, principes and triarii for the Romans as it adds a little variety and authenticity. BTW, there were no auxiliary cavalry in the sense of the later Rebublican and Imperial armies; the Roman legions had patrician equites at this time (300 per legion IIRC) while the allied Italian legions provided a substantial number of cavalry of their own (600? per legion).

Yes, you're right about the cavalry; I suppose they would have equites at this point. I suppose I could go for the expanded legions, especially since it seems like ToT allows more units.

By the way, here is a quick and dirty, very basic unit list - I expect to expand it.

Units

Syracuse (Syracusian)
- Urban Levy (settler)
- Heavy Infantry
- Light Archers
- Catapult
- Trader

Senate and People of Rome (Roman)
- Velites
- Hastati
- Principes
- Triarii
- Equites
- Funtidores
- Catapult
- Trader

Carthage (Carthaginian)
- Libyan Phalangites
- Numidian Cavalry
- Balearic Slingers
- Iberians
- Gauls
- Poeni Merchant

Greek Colonies (Greek)
- Hoplites
- Light Cavalry
- Peltasts
- Trader

Mamertines (Mamertine)
- Campanian Hoplites
- Campanian Cavalry
- Pirates

Epirotes (Epirote)
- Phalangites
- Light Cavalry
- Elephants
- Samnite Mercenaries

...and, since Archimedes will be playing a prominent part in the scenario as well, I may well add some kind of upgraded catapult, and even a steam cannon or two.

[Cyclotron]

By the way, what would be the typical Greek colony panoply in the third century BC?

[fairline]

The typical Hellenistic panoply at this time would follow the Successor Phalangite model: Phrygian/Thracian, Ascalon or cheaper pylos helmet, linen cuirass (often reinforced with scales) or muscled cuirass. If he were a true phalangite pikeman he would carry the smaller Macedonian shield, whereas heavy infantry armed with shorter spears would still carry the hoplon shield. Both these models are covered in the units file above. I think most sources have the Carthaginians armed as hellenistic phalangites.

The Greek colonies in southern Italy were influenced by Samnite fashions: Attic, Italo-Corinthian or Celtic Monteforino helmet, small square or triple-disc cuirass and either round hoplon or Samnite rectangular scutum. Not sure whether this also applied to Sicily or whether the more conventional phalangite gear was worn.

The Romans were different again: velites were equiped with a simple round shield and helmet often covered with animal skin, hastati and principes usually wore Monteforino helmets and carried the scutum and pila; the richer ones might have either a small Samnite-type breast-plate or mail. Triarii were better equiped: mail shirts and either Monteforino or Italo-Corinthian helmets and a single greave together with the hasta spear.

That's probably more information than you wanted or is healthy to know

[Cyclotron]

No, that's exactly what I needed, thank you.

As for Sicily, at the time of the scenario the island was only recently occupied by Pyrrhus, and I would assume the Epirote armies would be equipped in the same way as the Macedonians. Thus, there might be some diffused Macedonian-style material there - but by and large, it seems like they would use hoplite (not successor phalangite) material.

The better Syracusian infantry would probably also be outfitted with hoplite gear, though I'm not sure about the urban levies - maybe just hoplites without any armor to speak of.

[duke o' york]

The second unit from the left on the bottom row of the main block in fairline's post (with the raised spear and small shield) looks suitable for an urban levy. I'm not sure what sort of unit you're looking for - probably the equivalent of the Civ 2 warrior with the settler abilities?

[Cyclotron]

I was looking for more of a levy hoplite unit, some Syracusian citizen-soldiers that are good only for last-minute defense and backing up more powerful mercenary and professional armies. That one is more of a peltast.

It's hard to come up with exactly what the Syracusian army was made up of, but I did read that before the Battle of the Longinus River where Hiero crushed the Mamertines, he sent his mecenaries (many of whom, like the mamertines themselves, were "leftovers" from the previous campaigns of guys like Pyrrhus and Agathocles) to attack first, knowing well they would be slaughtered, to get rid of the unreliable part of the army (!).

I draw from that - the core of the army was non-mercenary, and was more likely a standing civic army or group of levies rather than a professional army (especially considering that Hiero had only been recently appointed general, and would have had no time to train a proper professional army). Still, Syracuse is only one city, and levies could only be called up to a point, which is why I figure they should take away pop points like settlers.

[Cyclotron]

So, maybe more like the guy two squares above the one you pointed out.

[Cyclotron]

My God, this game is ugly. I knew people said it was ugly, but this is ugly. It looks like someone loaded up Medieval Total War and turned the graphics slider to "Sh*t."

Okay, now that that's out of my system, let's see how this thing works.

[curtsibling]

In vanilla mode, the graphical charms are thin on the ground...

But we have the capability to make CIV2 look very nice!
As you can see with the block of units in the earlier post.

That is a magnificent array of ancient troops, fairline!

[Cyclotron]

I take it that animated units are rather rare for scenario designers? I don't see any posted in this forum.

[Cyclotron]

Nest Question: I just used the FW editor, as well as standard Paint for editing FW units. Does this still work for ToT, or do I need something like PSP?

[Mercator]

Paint works better for ToT than it does for FW, because you don't have to worry about the palette anymore. Of course, a better image editor, like PSP, is always preferable.

ToT doesn't have any editors, though, so you'll have to edit the text files yourself.

And yep, animated units are rare. That's not only because it takes more effort, but also because they use a custom format (the .spr files). I've made a utility that can edit those spr files (CivSprite), but it's rather limited. I could improve it, because I've figured out practically all of the file format by now. But I'm lazy (and busy).

[Cyclotron]

Thanks for your help, I'm glad the palette problem is gone with this new version. That was a pain.

I don't need this thread anymore, I'm moving my development into the more appropriately named thread. Thanks for the assistance, everyone.