The WRE will have access to the Custodes (Formed under different reasons though, since it won't have the Varangians).
[Mod] Project: Augustus - A Roman Realism Mod
- Thread starter omega20056
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
- Status
What are these Custodes?Is it a historical unit?I've never heard of them.
I made them up. It's a combination of the Roman term for palace troops (Palatini or palatina troops) and the name Augustus gave to his German bodyguards (Germani corporis custodes, meaning German guards corps).
I have a suggestion: Introduce a decision to make it possible to choose which title you want to have as your primary, either the political or the religious one (e.g. Achieureus or Imperator).
Both the leader of the fleet and of the custodes inherited the title long after I (and thus the capital) converted to Hellenism. They are both still Orthodox.
Religious titles are hardcoded to overwrite political titles. It was done so the Muslim caliphs always have it as their primary title.
I'll have to take a look at the military units but I'm pretty sure they are hardcoded to only have leaders of one religion. I could set them to spawn with a specific religion if you want.
Maybe one version of the mercenaries for every "usual" combination of religion and culture? One for Orthodox-Greek, one for Hellenism-Roman, one for Imperial-Roman? They could even have different names depending on culture. That would be cool.
I've actually already implemented something like that into my own version. The Scholarii are called the Tagma Scholarion for the Byzantines and the Scholae Palatinae for the Romans.
As soon as I iron the bugs out. Speaking of the tagmata, you just reminded me of something.*cough* Github *cough*
I'm a little bit worried about adding in the tagmata. I want to give the Visigoths, the Crimean Goths, and the West Romans there own mercenary units, but I'd rather the tagmata regiments be represented through the retinue system. The tagmata were cataphracts, and giving Byzantium 20,000 mercenary cataphracts right off the bat will heavily unbalance the game. This is why I haven't added them before now, and why Paradox only included the Varangian Guard.
Alternatively,didn't modern research argue that each tagmata can only contain 1,000 soldiers realistically?For all the wealth that the ERE has,I too find it ridiculous that they can have such a massive regular army(most of which was supposed to be cavalry) as well as bigger force of thematic troops(thematic troops also had to be paid despite given a piece of land to farm) when compared to earlier periods when they still had Syria,Palestine and Egypt.
Last edited:
That's actually up for debate. The Byzantinist Warren Treadgold said an average of 4,000 men for each tagma fits the numbers recorded in the officer lists. It's John Haldon (Who is also a very good Byzantinist) that came up with the smaller numbers, which he based on the work of the Irish historian J. B. Bury. If we accept the smaller numbers, I could create a single unit simply called the "Imperial Tagmata" which is made up of something like 4,000 cataphratcs, 1,000 light cavalry, and 1,000 horse archers (Another Byzantine favourite).
Last edited:
I think with the purpose of balance and flavour in mind,it would be nice to create 1,000 strong units to recreate as many historical units as possible without completely breaking balance.
It's actually not too unreasonable for each tagma to be at the most 1,500 men strong. The emperor Diocletian broke up the Roman legions into smaller units 1,000 men strong, so it's possible that the tagmata could have followed this precedent. The idea behind the reorganisation was that smaller legions would be easier to control and reinforce. The Rhine and Danube legions were prone to revolting, so they were split up and redeployed to other areas.
I actually came across a website yesterday (I forget the URL) which had a passage from a Byzantine account that described the Scholai as being no more than "eighteen banda" strong. The cavalry banda were only 50-100 men strong (Compared to the 200-400 strong infantry banda), so the Scholai would have been 1,800 men strong at the most, eventually rising to 3,000 men by 1066. The Excubitors were the same size as the Scholai (Because they were created as a tagmata alongside it), so you'd have 3,000 men in Constantine V's time, which is similar to the 3,500 strong Scholae that Constantine created to replace the Praetorians.
If you add in the other two tagmata, the Hikanatoi and Arithmos (Which never changed size), you'd come out with a maximum of 6,000 men by 867, and 9,000 by 1066. If you include the Varangian Guard (Which was also considered a tagma), you get a maximum of 12,000 men in 867 and 15,000 in 1066. If you combine retinue changes and the vanilla mercenaries (The Great Company is probably as large as the Byzantine Companions got) you can easily field 20,000 men. I'll be giving Alexius I his Archontopoulai (A special regiment of 2,000 cataphracts made up of officer's orphans), so you won't be short of cavalry. The tagmata will be gone by 1081, but you'll be able to restore them for 500 gold and prestige. My only issue is coming up with a Roman name for the tagmata and the Archontopoulai.
I actually came across a website yesterday (I forget the URL) which had a passage from a Byzantine account that described the Scholai as being no more than "eighteen banda" strong. The cavalry banda were only 50-100 men strong (Compared to the 200-400 strong infantry banda), so the Scholai would have been 1,800 men strong at the most, eventually rising to 3,000 men by 1066. The Excubitors were the same size as the Scholai (Because they were created as a tagmata alongside it), so you'd have 3,000 men in Constantine V's time, which is similar to the 3,500 strong Scholae that Constantine created to replace the Praetorians.
If you add in the other two tagmata, the Hikanatoi and Arithmos (Which never changed size), you'd come out with a maximum of 6,000 men by 867, and 9,000 by 1066. If you include the Varangian Guard (Which was also considered a tagma), you get a maximum of 12,000 men in 867 and 15,000 in 1066. If you combine retinue changes and the vanilla mercenaries (The Great Company is probably as large as the Byzantine Companions got) you can easily field 20,000 men. I'll be giving Alexius I his Archontopoulai (A special regiment of 2,000 cataphracts made up of officer's orphans), so you won't be short of cavalry. The tagmata will be gone by 1081, but you'll be able to restore them for 500 gold and prestige. My only issue is coming up with a Roman name for the tagmata and the Archontopoulai.
I'm happy to announce that I've partnered up with caocao268, the creator of the Charlemagne's Legacy mod which overhauls the HRE and western Europe. It will be a few weeks before I can help him complete the mod and merge it in, but it is coming.
- Status