Plotting to kill the mercenary leaders was also a fine Roman tradition. 
Catalans really loved it.
Catalans really loved it.
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Should that not be "Roman legions of a bygone"? Otherwise, excellent analysis of the situation. It is humbling to see how far the Roman empire has fallen.
Had a lot of luck involved, and A lot of revolts to boot (I didnt even know what overextension is
). However I ended up with this*Latin though, she might be (yes it was a she) Empress Helen was wise enough (16 years old 5/5/5) and brought all of Africa to the empire plus she was orthodox, there was no bargaining that.
The only thing I regret is that I didn't dismantle the HRE or Established myself as emperor to make that unholy abomination a truly, Holy Roman And empire.
Damn regency councils...
*The empirium under Queen Helens reign https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/803x502q90/69/anwh.png
The empirium as It was passed to the infant Theodoros and the regency council https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/587x367q90/132/ktov.png
There were some nobles brewing discontent because Theodoros was an adopted child (got him through an event hence the low legitimacy).
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strictly speaking: are the legions still existing? I mean, does soldiers fight in legions or thema or only loose band grouped around their officers?
Plotting to kill the mercenary leaders was also a fine Roman tradition.
Catalans really loved it.
I think lust and murder is a fine Roman tradition... errr, maybe it's just human nature!
Alas, more murder is coming in this AAR! I do believe this is a problem of word processing and low ability for me to find such grammatical mistakes when I review the content before posting! Thanks!
That is a very fine job if I may say so myself!
Of course, perhaps you should have written about it in an AAR since my AAR is still going to stay true to the title one way or another...The Byzantine Military is something difficult to actually discuss because of the limited amount of sources available to historians. The Legions had ceased existing in their traditional system in the 7th Century as new military reforms were instituted. However, the Byzantine armies always so themselves as the heirs of the Legions and all the prestige and glory that went with it. The Byzantine Armies by the 8th Century mirrored those of the crude feudal levies of Europe and remained so until the empire's proper fall in 1453. The Late Byzantine Army was more or less never of grand size to compare to the battles of the legions of the republican and early imperial era so it's a tough comparison. This update, and the next update finishing my overview of the "Late Period Army" is essentially me presenting what the armies of Late Medieval Europe were like with a few incorporation of in-game units (like Eastern Infantry, Pike Infantry, etc.) into the narrative. Medieval warfare has been so tainted by the images of knights, swords, and shields, that most people forget that most medieval soldiers never had shields.
So in short, no - the legions no longer exist. Yet, the Byzantine armies always thought of themselves as being part of that tradition. The images and banners of the Tetragrammatic Cross to the banners of Christ or the Virgin Mother were meant to resemble the old Eagle standards of the past. Everything was so calculated to replicate that tradition even though the Byzantine armies by the 12th Century were never much of an effective force compared to their neighbors.
That is a very fine job if I may say so myself!
Unfortunately my writing skill sucks. I can think of really good ideas and can create beautiful pictures in my mind and I remember every tid bit of that particular game, but my problem has always been putting my thoughts to pen (or keyboard). Simply put my writing is boring
Unfortunately my writing skill sucks. I can think of really good ideas and can create beautiful pictures in my mind and I remember every tid bit of that particular game, but my problem has always been putting my thoughts to pen (or keyboard). Simply put my writing is boring
Gameplay AARs can help compensate text-driven AARs which storyline or narrative is very important (while I'm personally partial to text-driven AARs, I do enjoy some very well crafted gameplay AARs). Well, perhaps some practice then? I need to be able to write well for my work - otherwise I would never get published and therefore never get paid! :glare:
That was still a wonderfully carved out empire you managed to create for yourself, one that I think I'm now very envious of and gives me motivation for the future!
They didn't? I'm surprised. I assumed people could just walk into a store and buy a shield.*
*An assumption I got from playing "Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time", combined with watching a lot of medieval re-enactment documentaries where everyone and their brother seem to have shields.
You sound like Woodrow Wilson, volksmarschall. :laugh:
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Gameplay AARs can help compensate text-driven AARs which storyline or narrative is very important (while I'm personally partial to text-driven AARs, I do enjoy some very well crafted gameplay AARs). Well, perhaps some practice then? I need to be able to write well for my work - otherwise I would never get published and therefore never get paid! :glare:
That was still a wonderfully carved out empire you managed to create for yourself, one that I think I'm now very envious of and gives me motivation for the future!
Well don't be, it was several patches earlier (1,3 I think...) and it was on easy
Well, I love Zelda, and the Elder Scrolls series, and they too give such an impression of shields everywhere!
Of course, history is more than contemporary documentaries and books. I subscribe to Walter Benjamin's notions of "Art History" (art tells us about history too, and is a reflection of the spirit and culture of the times).
When you study period artwork or Renaissance artwork depicting the Middle Ages (battles) you will notice a stunning absence of shields (some have them, but most don't)! When you mythologize the Knight as the soldier of the Medieval Age (everyone wants to be a knight in re-enactments) rather than showcase that the poor peasant was taken from his home and given hasty training in times of crisis (the peasants were the most common people forming medieval armies) you have a greater appreciation of such things. Of course, I probably should have had pictures when I told this to a crowd of medieval enthusiasts who thought I was crazy!
I hope that's in a good way!
However, I like Woodrow Wilson so...Well don't be, it was several patches earlier (1,3 I think...) and it was on easy
Still pretty good accomplishments regardless!
Chapter VI
While the Late Period Army near the end of John’s reign, following the First Macedonian War, had largely replaced the reliance upon mercenaries, the cost of war also ensured that mercenaries would always remain as an important medium which the empire could turn to if necessary. Of the 16,000 men who formed the backbone of the Late Period Army during the reign of John, about 3,000 belonged to mercenary companies that had been hired by the emperor to serve in the Imperial Army, a drastic reduction of the Palaiologoi Mercenary Arm that – in the mid fourteenth century, numbered over half of the soldiers in the Imperial Army!
During the duration of the Late Period Empire, the main weapon was the pike, with a secondary short sword for close quarter action (but this short sword is not the same as the gladius that the republican and Caesaric armies used to great brutality). While some Roman units used weapons that utilized gunpowder, the Late Period Army never mass-produced or equipped their forces with military firearms which came to dominate the European battlefield after the seventeenth century had ended. The Romans even had made use of gunpowder technology as early as the late fourteenth century, but again, the mass deployment of firearms never replaced traditional weapons that had been used in warfare for several centuries. The Romans were, contrary to popular mythology, among the first nations to use gunpowder weaponry which had been introduced to them via the Mongol Conquests of the Middle Ages – but financial constraints and economic problems caused them to favor the more tradition weapons for early gunpowder weaponry was both inefficient and often costly.
Various different styles and types of pikes or polearms of the Late Medieval and Renaissance period, which constituted the most common and mass produced weapon before the mass production of firearms in the 17th Century. The pike at the far right would have been the style similar to those used by the Late Period Army.
The only weapon of the Late Period Army that had its inception with the Roman legions of the past was the javelin, the modern scion to the Roman pilla that I described in Chapter One. Otherwise, the transition to shield and sword to pike and sword reflected the ongoing feudalization of the empire after the death of Justinian. Indeed, the idea that the armies of the Medieval and Late Medieval period had each man with a shield and sword is one of the greatest myths in military history. Only those privileged enough to have a shield had one during combat. Shields were often a sign and symbol of the nobility, in which one’s familial coat of arms was often displayed it the front. The shield itself was extremely expensive, and while the armies of early antiquity were able to produce and pay for the shields of the soldiers of the Greek Phalanx and Roman Legion was possible, the decline in wealth acquisition that descended upon the Mediterranean world after the end of Antiquity ensured that the shield itself was a precious commodity in combat. Most troops then were armed with a sword or pike or spear, and maybe a helmet if lucky. Those armies that did see a large scale use of shields, were often shields of poor quality fostered with wood and were unsuitable to withstand sustained conflict before disintegrating away. This reflects the dependence upon locally recruited levies to serve in armies during this time period. Only the professionally trained soldiers had the luxury of being armed with armor, shield, and weapon; and while standing armies were often inflated or mythologized about, the reality is that not even the wealthiest of kingdoms or empires possessed large standing armies until the formalized development of the nation-state and the exploitation of natural resources in Europe and the Old World.
The closest thing to the continuation of the traditions of the Roman Legion during the Late Period Empire then was the manner in which the soldiers were dispersed across the empire. During the reign of John, with the territorial acquisitions in Anatolia and Greece, the Roman Army was split into different regions to maintain order among the local populace. The army however, due to the strategic importance of the only city that truly mattered – Constantinople, the vast majority of the small Imperial Army was always stationed in the city that Constantine had built to rival the majesty and grandeur of the city to which all roads led to. This manner of stationing soldiers mirrored that of the old empire which, as it expanded, its legions were placed in strategic locations as sort of garrisons to maintain public order and respond to threats when they arrived – rather than having the armies situated in the capital and have to march long distances before finally encountering their opponents.
About 11,000-12,000 soldiers of the Late Period Army during John’s reign was stationed in Constantinople and another 3,000-4,000 stationed in the Morea, where they could depend upon an equal number of Athenian soldiers to be raised during a time of war. The Despotate of Trebizond, due to its relative isolation in Anatolia never saw properly attention in garrisoning until the reign of Emperor John X whose bid for Universal Empire brought the empire to the eclipse of prestige, revival, and decay. Of the troops that would remain to contain law and order and respond to Anatolian Crises were often crudely hired mercenaries and other local levies that were as quickly disbanded once the situation was brought under control.
The locus of Roman strategy, even during the restoration of the Komnenoi, was to maintain either a balance of power or reliance on strategic defense and the garrisoning of strong points or other locations to which their inferior army could ward off the Mohammedan threat. The Roman Navy that had been reformed under Philemon Tornikes is the perfect example of this. The Roman Navy never had dreams, at least during the reigns of John and Constantine, to grow beyond the size of the vaunted Mohammedan navy that the Turkic Sultan possessed. Rather, the hope of the reformed Late Period Navy was to hold the Bosphorus and Dardanelles to prevent the crossing of it by the large body of Mohammedan soldiers who would just as quickly swing north and descend upon the city of Constantinople. To hold off the Turks is victory in of itself.
Furthermore, the strategy of the Late Period Armies reflected this. While it is unfortunate that the Despotate of Trebizond was often sacrificed in war in favor of deliberate concentration in Europe – the Turks had to split their forces between protection of their Eastern Anatolian borders and their dreams of expansion into Eastern and Central Europe. While the Mohammedan army, especially when Turkish allies rallied to the call to arms, vastly outnumbered the Roman Army at all times – the Roman Army, when concentrated in Europe was generally equal in size to the Mohammedans. Constantine had pioneered the idea of fighting united against a divided enemy to gain as much as an advantage as possible, particularly since Mohammedan soldiers of the period were often better equipped, better motivated, and better trained than their Roman counterparts. The Mohammedan armies in Europe were often split defending the borders of Southern Greece, Serbia, and European coast of the Black Sea. To defeat the Mohammedan armies individually ensured numerical superiority would win out against better soldiers.
The armies of John VIII were never more than a mere shell of the former glory and splendor of the Roman legions of past emperors, but to try and compare the Late Period Army to the republican or early imperial legions I think is misleading and unfair – even though I have proceeded to do so in this chapter of my work. It is like comparing an apple to an orange. As I have mentioned repeatedly, the encroachment of feudalism over Europe changed the manner and customs of warfare from what can be seen in Early and Late Antiquity to the massed levies recruited by the noble aristocracy in times of crisis during the Medieval Age.
A manuscript showing Late Period Pike Infantry of the Palaiologoi Armies, note the absence of shields in their battle dress.
Even so, the Late Period Roman Army was not of the same caliber as some of the more semi-professional forces of Europe. It wasn’t until the military reforms of John X and the subsequent Italian Wars in which the Late Period Army could recover some of its lost legacy and be regarded among the finest military forces in the Europe, if not the world! Despite this, the Late Period Army of Emperor John managed a great feat. To hold together a fragile empire and even expand it is a remarkable accomplishment considering how far the empire had fallen since its zenith under Justinian and Basil. While the discipline and tactics of the Legion is unrivaled, perhaps even to this day – the accomplishments of the Late Period Army under the Emperor John VIII is worthy of as much laurel and praise the accomplishments accomplishments at Zama, Alesia, Thapsus, or the Nile! Yet, to mythologize the Late Period Army to being remotely similar to the armies that had conquered much of Europe and the Mediterranean world is just that – myth.
The success of the Late Period Army, in relations to their confrontation with the armies of the Mohammedan Turks, was not in an inherent superiority in the training or discipline of the Roman soldier, let alone the equipment that he carried into battle with him – but a result of decisive planning from Roman commanders like Constantine XI (before he had ascended to the throne) and to the aforementioned nobleman Georgios Diogenes. Ultimately however, the manner and general system that epitomized the Late Period Army – one that would circle between highs and lows, cowardice and acts of bravery, would fail the empire when all said and done. Just as the armies of the Roman Republic pledged their loyalties not to Rome, the idea and ideology that unified the republic to conquer much of the world of Antiquity – but to their generals and officers and senators whom they had grown to adore with the upmost affection. The splitting of loyalties of the republican armies allowed for Augustus to rise to the throne and declare himself Caesar after defeating the legions loyal to Mark Antony and the Greek queen of Egypt Cleopatra.
This manner of loyalty to a general or officer would become one the principle catalysts during the days of the Long Regency, which I shall cover in grand detail in the third volume of my work on the Decline and Fall of Roman Civilization, would threaten the very fabric and uniformity of the empire that the great emperor John X would come to build and reform, which included an attempt to make the army more loyal and more efficient in battle – to which he was only partially successful in. Mutiny is a crime punishable by death, but in the military culture of Rome, military mutiny was fairly common and was a driving cause for the transition from republic to empire. Yet, unlike those pirates of mutiny in the modern armies of Europe and North America – whom would suffer from the yoke of capital punishment for their despicable actions, the mutinies of Roman soldiers ended with Romans fighting other Romans, more often than not, in which the sword and shield of their brethren was the medium of “capital punishment” if you will, if you were the unfortunate soul to be on the wrong side of the steel.
Thus, we might be surprised not in how the armies of the Late Period Empire performed in battle, but we should be surprised that they managed to hold the empire together for such a long period of time when they were also one of the major reasons for the weakening of the empire, ever since the end of the Komnenoi Dynasty some three centuries ago.
The Late Model Infantry
While the Late Period Army near the end of John’s reign, following the First Macedonian War, had largely replaced the reliance upon mercenaries, the cost of war also ensured that mercenaries would always remain as an important medium which the empire could turn to if necessary. Of the 16,000 men who formed the backbone of the Late Period Army during the reign of John, about 3,000 belonged to mercenary companies that had been hired by the emperor to serve in the Imperial Army, a drastic reduction of the Palaiologoi Mercenary Arm that – in the mid fourteenth century, numbered over half of the soldiers in the Imperial Army!
During the duration of the Late Period Empire, the main weapon was the pike, with a secondary short sword for close quarter action (but this short sword is not the same as the gladius that the republican and Caesaric armies used to great brutality). While some Roman units used weapons that utilized gunpowder, the Late Period Army never mass-produced or equipped their forces with military firearms which came to dominate the European battlefield after the seventeenth century had ended. The Romans even had made use of gunpowder technology as early as the late fourteenth century, but again, the mass deployment of firearms never replaced traditional weapons that had been used in warfare for several centuries. The Romans were, contrary to popular mythology, among the first nations to use gunpowder weaponry which had been introduced to them via the Mongol Conquests of the Middle Ages – but financial constraints and economic problems caused them to favor the more tradition weapons for early gunpowder weaponry was both inefficient and often costly.
Various different styles and types of pikes or polearms of the Late Medieval and Renaissance period, which constituted the most common and mass produced weapon before the mass production of firearms in the 17th Century. The pike at the far right would have been the style similar to those used by the Late Period Army.
The only weapon of the Late Period Army that had its inception with the Roman legions of the past was the javelin, the modern scion to the Roman pilla that I described in Chapter One. Otherwise, the transition to shield and sword to pike and sword reflected the ongoing feudalization of the empire after the death of Justinian. Indeed, the idea that the armies of the Medieval and Late Medieval period had each man with a shield and sword is one of the greatest myths in military history. Only those privileged enough to have a shield had one during combat. Shields were often a sign and symbol of the nobility, in which one’s familial coat of arms was often displayed it the front. The shield itself was extremely expensive, and while the armies of early antiquity were able to produce and pay for the shields of the soldiers of the Greek Phalanx and Roman Legion was possible, the decline in wealth acquisition that descended upon the Mediterranean world after the end of Antiquity ensured that the shield itself was a precious commodity in combat. Most troops then were armed with a sword or pike or spear, and maybe a helmet if lucky. Those armies that did see a large scale use of shields, were often shields of poor quality fostered with wood and were unsuitable to withstand sustained conflict before disintegrating away. This reflects the dependence upon locally recruited levies to serve in armies during this time period. Only the professionally trained soldiers had the luxury of being armed with armor, shield, and weapon; and while standing armies were often inflated or mythologized about, the reality is that not even the wealthiest of kingdoms or empires possessed large standing armies until the formalized development of the nation-state and the exploitation of natural resources in Europe and the Old World.
The closest thing to the continuation of the traditions of the Roman Legion during the Late Period Empire then was the manner in which the soldiers were dispersed across the empire. During the reign of John, with the territorial acquisitions in Anatolia and Greece, the Roman Army was split into different regions to maintain order among the local populace. The army however, due to the strategic importance of the only city that truly mattered – Constantinople, the vast majority of the small Imperial Army was always stationed in the city that Constantine had built to rival the majesty and grandeur of the city to which all roads led to. This manner of stationing soldiers mirrored that of the old empire which, as it expanded, its legions were placed in strategic locations as sort of garrisons to maintain public order and respond to threats when they arrived – rather than having the armies situated in the capital and have to march long distances before finally encountering their opponents.
About 11,000-12,000 soldiers of the Late Period Army during John’s reign was stationed in Constantinople and another 3,000-4,000 stationed in the Morea, where they could depend upon an equal number of Athenian soldiers to be raised during a time of war. The Despotate of Trebizond, due to its relative isolation in Anatolia never saw properly attention in garrisoning until the reign of Emperor John X whose bid for Universal Empire brought the empire to the eclipse of prestige, revival, and decay. Of the troops that would remain to contain law and order and respond to Anatolian Crises were often crudely hired mercenaries and other local levies that were as quickly disbanded once the situation was brought under control.
The locus of Roman strategy, even during the restoration of the Komnenoi, was to maintain either a balance of power or reliance on strategic defense and the garrisoning of strong points or other locations to which their inferior army could ward off the Mohammedan threat. The Roman Navy that had been reformed under Philemon Tornikes is the perfect example of this. The Roman Navy never had dreams, at least during the reigns of John and Constantine, to grow beyond the size of the vaunted Mohammedan navy that the Turkic Sultan possessed. Rather, the hope of the reformed Late Period Navy was to hold the Bosphorus and Dardanelles to prevent the crossing of it by the large body of Mohammedan soldiers who would just as quickly swing north and descend upon the city of Constantinople. To hold off the Turks is victory in of itself.
Furthermore, the strategy of the Late Period Armies reflected this. While it is unfortunate that the Despotate of Trebizond was often sacrificed in war in favor of deliberate concentration in Europe – the Turks had to split their forces between protection of their Eastern Anatolian borders and their dreams of expansion into Eastern and Central Europe. While the Mohammedan army, especially when Turkish allies rallied to the call to arms, vastly outnumbered the Roman Army at all times – the Roman Army, when concentrated in Europe was generally equal in size to the Mohammedans. Constantine had pioneered the idea of fighting united against a divided enemy to gain as much as an advantage as possible, particularly since Mohammedan soldiers of the period were often better equipped, better motivated, and better trained than their Roman counterparts. The Mohammedan armies in Europe were often split defending the borders of Southern Greece, Serbia, and European coast of the Black Sea. To defeat the Mohammedan armies individually ensured numerical superiority would win out against better soldiers.
The armies of John VIII were never more than a mere shell of the former glory and splendor of the Roman legions of past emperors, but to try and compare the Late Period Army to the republican or early imperial legions I think is misleading and unfair – even though I have proceeded to do so in this chapter of my work. It is like comparing an apple to an orange. As I have mentioned repeatedly, the encroachment of feudalism over Europe changed the manner and customs of warfare from what can be seen in Early and Late Antiquity to the massed levies recruited by the noble aristocracy in times of crisis during the Medieval Age.
A manuscript showing Late Period Pike Infantry of the Palaiologoi Armies, note the absence of shields in their battle dress.
Even so, the Late Period Roman Army was not of the same caliber as some of the more semi-professional forces of Europe. It wasn’t until the military reforms of John X and the subsequent Italian Wars in which the Late Period Army could recover some of its lost legacy and be regarded among the finest military forces in the Europe, if not the world! Despite this, the Late Period Army of Emperor John managed a great feat. To hold together a fragile empire and even expand it is a remarkable accomplishment considering how far the empire had fallen since its zenith under Justinian and Basil. While the discipline and tactics of the Legion is unrivaled, perhaps even to this day – the accomplishments of the Late Period Army under the Emperor John VIII is worthy of as much laurel and praise the accomplishments accomplishments at Zama, Alesia, Thapsus, or the Nile! Yet, to mythologize the Late Period Army to being remotely similar to the armies that had conquered much of Europe and the Mediterranean world is just that – myth.
The success of the Late Period Army, in relations to their confrontation with the armies of the Mohammedan Turks, was not in an inherent superiority in the training or discipline of the Roman soldier, let alone the equipment that he carried into battle with him – but a result of decisive planning from Roman commanders like Constantine XI (before he had ascended to the throne) and to the aforementioned nobleman Georgios Diogenes. Ultimately however, the manner and general system that epitomized the Late Period Army – one that would circle between highs and lows, cowardice and acts of bravery, would fail the empire when all said and done. Just as the armies of the Roman Republic pledged their loyalties not to Rome, the idea and ideology that unified the republic to conquer much of the world of Antiquity – but to their generals and officers and senators whom they had grown to adore with the upmost affection. The splitting of loyalties of the republican armies allowed for Augustus to rise to the throne and declare himself Caesar after defeating the legions loyal to Mark Antony and the Greek queen of Egypt Cleopatra.
This manner of loyalty to a general or officer would become one the principle catalysts during the days of the Long Regency, which I shall cover in grand detail in the third volume of my work on the Decline and Fall of Roman Civilization, would threaten the very fabric and uniformity of the empire that the great emperor John X would come to build and reform, which included an attempt to make the army more loyal and more efficient in battle – to which he was only partially successful in. Mutiny is a crime punishable by death, but in the military culture of Rome, military mutiny was fairly common and was a driving cause for the transition from republic to empire. Yet, unlike those pirates of mutiny in the modern armies of Europe and North America – whom would suffer from the yoke of capital punishment for their despicable actions, the mutinies of Roman soldiers ended with Romans fighting other Romans, more often than not, in which the sword and shield of their brethren was the medium of “capital punishment” if you will, if you were the unfortunate soul to be on the wrong side of the steel.
Thus, we might be surprised not in how the armies of the Late Period Empire performed in battle, but we should be surprised that they managed to hold the empire together for such a long period of time when they were also one of the major reasons for the weakening of the empire, ever since the end of the Komnenoi Dynasty some three centuries ago.
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I always thought of mutiny as a naval thing. On land, would it not be called treason, or am I just imagining things? Also, why are bowmen not mentioned? I know the bulk of the army was made of conscripted peasants, but peasants don't just farm, they also hunt for a living. I expect a good chunk of them to be not that great with the bow, but they should at least know which end of the arrow points at the enemy...
You might be just imagining things!
Mutinies on land occur all the time (French Army Mutinies in WWI). Yet, the word is often used in context of ship crews.I did not have much extensive mention of the bow for two reasons, one per game, and one per historical research. After the fall of Trebizond (Empire of Trebizond), the Palaiologoi Armies from my studies, didn't have an extensive archer arm as has been mythologized by contemporaries (mostly video games). Plus, most of the farmers in the Near East weren't bow hunters but farmers through and through. As far as I can tell, very few Byzantine soldiers in the Palaiologoi armies used the weapon. Second, in-game, my infantry is the Eastern Militia (and later the Pike Infantry) thence the heavy emphasis on the pike and polearm when talking about the "Late Period Army."
That said, there are only a few books on the Byzantine Army proper. I'm not talking about that "crap" with pretty illustrations (those picture type books that Osprey popularized) but actual history books. The Late Byzantine Army: Arms and Society by Mark Batusis is the only proper book I have on the subject - even though it is going on 20 years old now.
If I remember correctly the original themata of Optimaton had to be split during the 8th? century because the local commanders always rebelled at least once a decade against the Emperor.
You might be just imagining things!
I did not have much extensive mention of the bow for two reasons, one per game, and one per historical research. After the fall of Trebizond (Empire of Trebizond), the Palaiologoi Armies from my studies, didn't have an extensive archer arm as has been mythologized by contemporaries (mostly video games). Plus, most of the farmers in the Near East weren't bow hunters but farmers through and through. As far as I can tell, very few Byzantine soldiers in the Palaiologoi armies used the weapon. Second, in-game, my infantry is the Eastern Militia (and later the Pike Infantry) thence the heavy emphasis on the pike and polearm when talking about the "Late Period Army."
That said, there are only a few books on the Byzantine Army proper. I'm not talking about that "crap" with pretty illustrations (those picture type books that Osprey popularized) but actual history books. The Late Byzantine Army: Arms and Society by Mark Batusis is the only proper book I have on the subject - even though it is going on 20 years old now.
I think the last archer units to serve the empire were under the Komnenian reforms/restoration. But IF (and thats a big if since I have not my books with me) remember correctly aside from several units composing of Trapezudan archer levies (Trebizond to the English speakers) it was the Cataphracts (or what was left of them anyway) that were carrying auxiliary bows.
BTW I am running out of creative praise so I wont bother, you know you do a great job
Really enjoyed the detail of the last update. I've never been much of a military historian myself, and I'm very impressed at the level of research which has gone into your writing.
The naval strategy of holding the balance of power is an interesting one - but one which is perhaps difficult to reconcile with the mechanics of EUIV. I may be mistaken, but I don't recall fleets gaining any modifiers for fighting in a strategic choke point such as the Bosporus. In game terms, will you not require a more powerful fleet in absolute terms to hold the Turks at bay?
The naval strategy of holding the balance of power is an interesting one - but one which is perhaps difficult to reconcile with the mechanics of EUIV. I may be mistaken, but I don't recall fleets gaining any modifiers for fighting in a strategic choke point such as the Bosporus. In game terms, will you not require a more powerful fleet in absolute terms to hold the Turks at bay?
If I remember correctly the original themata of Optimaton had to be split during the 8th? century because the local commanders always rebelled at least once a decade against the Emperor.
Yes, the "Strongman" Themata needed reform because of disloyal generals. But I'm not sure why you brought that up since I was just talking about the standard Theme System that should have really been done away with by the Komnenoi but just got the reform treatment.
You can say that, I was trained in history (economics and philosophy as well). So I primarily write and lecture on economics and history topics to justify my paycheck since I don't have a PhD so I'm not a professor. In that sense, I'm not a historian since I don't teach or write books for a living, although I hope to accomplish that within the next 10 years.
BTW I am running out of creative praise so I wont bother, you know you do a great job
The problem with writing such a textual historical research based AAR? What else are you all kind readers supposed to say. "Good job/Good writing" per every update since I'm not really requesting gameplay advice or showing many screenshots outside where I - essentially use the screenshot(s) in place of a map!
Yet, comments are always give an encouragement to continue writing!Military history has a special place in my heart since the fascination with war as a young boy really started my interest into history (American Civil War --> WWII --> History). That said, I think now that I'm a semi-historian (only a B.A.
) that military history is overrated but it's definitely the most popular. Same with political history. I have a preference to the Annales School of Historiography, but personally dislike how they think "Political/military history is dead history." I have penchant for cultural and social history however - U.S. Religious is probably my best area of expertise.Galleys get the bonus in inland seas, which the Bosphorus is part of! So I have a lot of galleys as result, also because I can't afford to build Heavy ships (Early Carracks/Carracks). Of course, I'm happy to see so many appreciating the extensive writing that goes into this AAR (especially since I have so many updates that are taking place in the game's timeline that aren't really relating to much of the game at all - like my chapters on Society and Religion -- I'm just stating basic historical fact and religious doctrine).
Ooo, I was thinking of choosing to study history, but eventually settled on economics.
I hope I get to read your books one day.
As for my earlier themata comment, not sure why I thought of that. Eastern Roman military structures just were not quite stable and loyal all the time. Court never being able to trust local commanders 100%.
I hope I get to read your books one day.
As for my earlier themata comment, not sure why I thought of that. Eastern Roman military structures just were not quite stable and loyal all the time. Court never being able to trust local commanders 100%.
Ooo, I was thinking of choosing to study history, but eventually settled on economics.
I hope I get to read your books one day.
As for my earlier themata comment, not sure why I thought of that. Eastern Roman military structures just were not quite stable and loyal all the time. Court never being able to trust local commanders 100%.
As someone who studied economics, and to someone who is studying economics!
I believe I can tell you my favorite joke of all time and you will probably be among the people to get it.A physicist, a chemist, and an economist are stranded on an island. There is a can of food they found, but no way of opening it. The physicist and the chemist both create elaborate schemes to get the can open. They then ask the economist about his plan, and the economist replies, "Let's assume the can is open!"
:rofl:Well Enewald, you will be the first person I give a notice to when I get around to that PhD dissertation someday!